


Love Ain't Nothin but a Monster

by missunknownuser



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged up characters, BillDip, Fluff, Human Bill Cipher, M/M, a bit of a slow burn, a healthy relationship billdip fic, because we need more of those, i'll update these tags as I think of more, this is my first fanfic i don't know how to use tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:30:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 42,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4887262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missunknownuser/pseuds/missunknownuser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When something sinister is threatening the forest of Gravity Falls and all its magical inhabitants, there is only one creature Dipper can think to go to for help.  But when they strike a bargain ending with a certain triangular menace inhabiting a human body, how will Dipper's family react to their new housemate?  And can Dipper actually be falling for a demon?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'd never leave if it were up to me

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first foray into the world of fanfiction publishing...here's hoping it goes well! The entire story is already written and I just need to make final edits to later chapters, so no need to worry about it going on hiatus. I'll post new chapters as regularly as I can.  
> (Each chapter title is a lyric from a song that goes along with the chapter; at the end of the story I'll post the whole playlist on 8tracks and link it back here.)  
> The fic starts up slow, but picks up pace as it goes on. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!  
> The title for Chapter 1 is taken from the song Real World by Owl City.
> 
> EDIT: Here is the playlist!  
> http://8tracks.com/missunknownuser/love-ain-t-nothin-but-a-monster

            “Mabel, I can’t stand listening to this song again! We’ve heard it at least ten times since leaving California. I think I know every word by now.”

            “But I never get radio control! Besides, this was part of the deal. And you know you secretly like this song.”

            Dipper Pines sighed, knowing that it would be useless to keep arguing with his twin sister, who was presently sticking her tongue out at him in victory. Besides, they were almost at their destination.

            It was an uncharacteristically gloomy day in the seemingly sleepy town of Gravity Falls as Dipper and Mabel Pines turned off the highway and onto the main road that ran through the village. Their car may have only run on a prayer and a wish, but it was still better than taking the dreadful bus ride they had endured for so many summers of their childhood. The freedom of being able to drive themselves wherever they wanted wasn’t wasted on them.

            _Still,_ Dipper thought, rubbing a hand to his throbbing temple, _freedom does come with its sacrifices._ He shot a glance to his twin, who was happily humming along to her favorite insufferable summer pop song. She had agreed to let Dipper drive from their California home to Oregon only if she could control the radio, and he was beginning to regret the agreement.

            Dipper gave Mabel a devious look out of the corner of his eye. “If you don’t change it I’ll start singing along.”

            Mabel’s expression instantly sobered. “You wouldn’t,” she said with a look of horror.

            It had been three years since the Pines twins had last been to Gravity Falls, and they missed it like hell. Over the years, the Mystery Shack had become more of a home to them than their own in California. Being away so long was beginning to feel like they were missing their right hand. So, the two had cleared their summer schedule and hopped in the car the day after finals ended, eager to begin their summer adventure already.

            Dipper made the turn onto Gopher Road, the ride instantly turning much more jarring as their ancient car struggled to make it down the rough dirt road. Eyes peered out from the dark of the forest as dusk began to settle, putting Dipper’s nerves on edge. Usually the creatures of the forest didn’t come this close to any of the roads….

            He shook his head as the Mystery Shack began to creep into view, Mabel turning to him with shining eyes.

            “I can’t believe it’s been three years since we’ve last been here!” she exclaimed, nearly bouncing up and down in excitement. Dipper laughed quietly; though his twin had matured since their first summer here, her excitability and childish nature were still very much alive.

            “It feels like longer,” he answered. “I wonder if the Shack has changed much.”

            “Knowing Grunkle Stan, probably not,” Mabel responded with a laugh. It was no secret that Stan was nearly useless when it came to tidying and keeping up with repairs around the aging tourist trap.

            Finding out that Grunkle Stan had a twin brother during their first summer at Gravity Falls had been a shocking experience. In fact, the summer in its entirety had been a shocking experience. The summer had come to its climax when the real Stanford stepped through the portal, the six-fingered Author of the Journals in all of his shining glory. The glory was short-lived, however, when it became apparent that thirty years hadn’t been enough to patch the rift between the brothers. So, Ford was on his way in a matter of months when it became apparent that Stanley wasn’t going to give up the Mystery Shack without a fight. He stayed just long enough impart some of the secrets of the forest to Dipper, and seemed to straddle the line between being thrilled with the amount of questions Dipper had for him and being annoyed by his great nephew’s incessant curiosity.

            Despite the overbearing questions that Stan, Mabel, and Dipper had, Ford was unwilling to talk about what had transpired during his thirty years in an alternate dimension. It seemed as though there was some grand secret that he was pointedly keeping from them all, but he was on his way on ‘important business’ once he had shut the portal down for good.

            Dipper wasn’t overly fond of Ford, but he felt that he was a kindred spirit, that they understood each other on some level. He was really just grateful that Standford had let him keep all three journals, though Dipper had expected to get more answers from the elusive Author.

            Mabel and Dipper pulled into the driveway of the Mystery Shack just as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. As the car sputtered to a stop, Stan appeared on the porch, what could almost be described as a smile ghosting over his face.

            “Grunkle Stan!” Mabel exclaimed, throwing herself out of the car and sweeping him into a hug.

            The aging man responded with a laugh. “Good to see you, kid! Hell, you’ve grown since I’ve last seen you. How long has it been anyway?!”

            Stepping out of the car and stretching after the long ride, Dipper breathed in deep, the fresh air invigorating after too long spent in over-crowded California. His body seemed to hum with the magic he expected to feel coursing through him but couldn’t quite grasp. Ah, well, he was rusty. Three years was a lot to be out of practice when it came to performing magic, but he would have the whole summer to get caught up.

            Dipper approached Stan, holding out a hand which the older man grasped and used to pull his great nephew into a hug. Dipper fell into him with a huff of laughter, clapping a hand against the man’s back as the two pulled away.

            Stan appraised Dipper with searching eyes, his mouth pulling down into a frown. “You look tired, kid.”

            Dipper smiled, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Long drive,” he answered. “Nothing that a good night’s sleep won’t fix.”

            The truth was that Dipper hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep in months. Between the stresses of college and the near constant nightmares that had appeared out of nowhere a few months ago, restful sleep had become little more than a pleasant memory.

            Stan nodded but didn’t look convinced. “Come on and bring your stuff inside and we’ll order something to eat for dinner.”

            Dipper and Mabel exchanged smiles as they walked into the threshold of the Mystery Shack. They were both thinking the same thing: _It feels good to be back._

~~

            Somewhere deep in the forest but dimensions apart, a creature stirred, his single eye blinking. Had he just felt who he thought cross through the border into his town? A slow chuckle worked its way out of him; it had been much too long since he had last played with his favorite human toy.

            A breeze stirred the colorless trees around him, newly bloomed leaves rustling with the faint promise of warmer days to come. It was his favorite time of the year, summer. It used to be just like any other season, unremarkable to a timeless demon such as himself. But then the Pines twins started coming to Gravity Falls during the summer and they were just so much fun to play around with. It was refreshing, having a human toy who didn’t quiver at the sight of him. Over the years his little Pine Tree had grown into a brave young man, countless days spent exploring the forest and studying its supernatural creatures giving him the boldness and courage that his twelve year old self had lacked.

            But for the past three years the demon had been bored; the twin humans hadn’t come to the Falls during their summer vacation. He had, well no, of course he hadn’t been _worried_ about the two. But he had grown used to the break in what had become his otherwise monotonous existence. It was the best entertainment, constantly hanging around the Pines, teasing and mocking them, playing harmless tricks. Especially when he managed to embarrass Pine Tree; that was true hilarity.

            Rising into the air and above the sleepy forest where the creatures of the night emerged, Bill Cipher took a look around his domain before setting off in the direction of the run-down tourist trap that the twins called a home away from home. It was time to pay his favorite meatsack a visit.

~~

            After dinner, Dipper headed upstairs to his room to start unpacking and go to sleep. What he told Stan hadn’t been a lie; he truly was exhausted, though not just from the car ride. He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in nearly three months. The nightmares had come on gradually; for a few weeks, he would just awaken in the morning with a vague uneasy feeling. Then, he started to remember the dreams, which had truly unnerved him. It was three months ago that he had started waking up in the middle of the night screaming, horrifying visions flashing in front of his eyes before slowly fading away.

            He had started going to sleep later and later; he had come to dread it, and coffee had become his best friend. If his hands had developed a fine shake to them that was perfectly okay—anything was better than the nightmares. He would never had admitted it, but Dipper knew that his roommate was all but fed up with him—being awakened by your roommate’s bloodcurdling screams every night got old fast.

            Dipper was hoping he would be able to get a full night’s rest now that he was in the safety of the room he had spent so many summers in as a child, as opposed to a crowded and noisy dorm. In fact, it was a large part of why he and Mabel had decided to spend the summer at their childhood home away from home.

            Dipper lugged his suitcase up the narrow staircase, pausing to catch his breath before opening the creaky door to what had been his and Mabel’s bedroom for so many summers. The room was largely unchanged, the major difference being the absence of Mabel’s bed since Dipper had pushed it into the closet to make more room. As they had grown older, sharing a room had become more and more impractical, and Dipper ended up losing the coin toss they had used to decide who would take the extra room that had previously housed the body-switching carpet.          

            Sitting on the lone bed in the corner of the room, Dipper looked around at the scattered junk that had littered the floor since he and Mabel had spent the summers there as children. Grimacing, Dipper decided that he would have a lot of cleaning up to do in order to make the room livable. But first on the list was unpacking, and then, with any luck, sleeping.

            As Dipper emptied his suitcase, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. It wasn’t a feeling that he was unused to, but it certainly wasn’t a feeling that comforted him. Glancing around, Dipper shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. He was almost positive that he could feel something watching him, but he was alone in the room.

~~

            Bill’s eye narrowed as he studied the young man, unseen in the neighboring dimension. The human looked more worn than he had three summers ago, as if all the weight of the world was suddenly his alone to carry. He had lost weight, Bill noticed, and his faced looked almost gaunt and hollow, the ubiquitous bruises under his eyes more noticeable than ever.

            What had happened over the past three years that had changed the man so drastically?

A thought flitted across his mind before he quickly banished it. _What if Pine Tree knew what was happening in Gravity Falls?_ But no, that was ridiculous. There was no way that a human, even a human so in tune with magic, would be able to tell what was happening to the supernatural creatures. But Bill wondered idly, would Dipper Pines be able to save the town from the imminent danger it was facing?

~~

            As soon as he was unpacked Dipper readied himself for bed, already more at ease than he had felt in months. However, his hopes of a peaceful night’s sleep were dashed as soon as his head his the pillow and he was pulled into the same nightmare that he endured every night. Much to his horror, inside the magical boundaries of Gravity Falls it was much, much more vivid.

            In the nightmare, Dipper was wandering around the forest of Gravity Falls as he had for countless hours as a kid. But the forest was not as he remembered it; it was infinitely more sinister. Try as he might, Dipper was unable to find his way out. It seemed like he kept going in circles, and there was always something following him right out of the corner of his eye that he could never quite see. The trees above him grew together in a thick canopy so dense that he couldn’t make out the sky above him.

            A cacophony of voices filled his head, whispering words to him that he couldn’t understand but didn’t need to; the tone alone sent him running through the forest, anything to just get _away_ from them.

            In the dream Dipper always had a great sense of fear unlike anything he had felt before, but he always got the impression that it wasn’t his fear alone. It felt more like an amalgamation of fears of everything in the forest, a fear so great it became the fear of the forest itself. The terror fueled Dipper’s flight through the woods, he was always running by now, but still with no direction and no idea where to go.

            The last scene of the dream was different than it had ever been, however. Just as Dipper broke through the line of trees and onto the edge of a cliff, the point at which he always woke up, he saw something silhouetted against the night sky. Straining his eyes, Dipper was just able to make out the form of a golden triangle, floating in the night sky, watching him. Losing his balance, Dipper toppled over the edge of the cliff.

            He woke up to the sounds of his own screams and the worried faces of his sister and Great Uncle hovering in the doorway.

            Maybe this summer wasn’t going to be as relaxing as he had hoped.


	2. Couldn't sleep from the awful fright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 is here! The title is from the song 1940 by The Submarines.

            Dipper awoke the next morning with a pounding headache, feeling no more rested than when he had first laid down to go to sleep.

            He made his way down to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee, sitting next to Mabel at the table as she gushed to him about all of the activities she had planned for them in the coming months. Dipper tried to pay attention, but quickly felt himself zoning out. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

            “…and Grenda and Candy will come too, and I’ll even try to get Pacifica to come, but you know how she can be about anything outdoors-y, and…hey, you okay, bro-bro?”

            Her words startled Dipper out of his thoughts. “What?” he asked, not having been paying attention to anything his sister had been saying.

            “You don’t look so good,” she answered, staring at her twin in concern. “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said.

            “You still didn’t sleep last night, did you.” It was a statement, not a question, and the worn look on Mabel’s face mirrored Dipper’s own. Dipper hated to see that look on his twin’s normally high-spirited face, and hated even more that he was the reason for it.

            “I’m fine,” he answered, thoughts still elsewhere, though he attempted a weak smile that quickly slipped off his face. This sleep deprivation was getting to be too much, even for him.

            “You sure?” she asked, a worried look on her face.

            “Yeah, you know, it just feels strange to be back.”

            Mabel nodded. “I know, it’s been way too long. It feels like we’ve been away from home forever.” She stood up, pushing her chair back and giving Dipper’s hand a light squeeze where it rested on the table.

            “I’m gonna go help out in the shop, I promised Stan that I would today. Why don’t you lie down for a while? You look like you could use some more rest.”

            Dipper nodded at Mabel. “Yeah, I think I will, thanks,” he said as she walked away. As soon as she was out of the door, Dipper dropped his head into his hands, thoughts churning.    

            Something was wrong. He had felt it when he arrived yesterday, but had been too tired from the long car ride to think much of it. But now there was no denying it: he couldn’t feel the magic that he had grown so used to associating with Gravity Falls coursing through him. He had thought that he was just rusty, that so much time spent in California had made him out of tune with the magic. But there was no denying it: it wasn’t there at all. He felt empty without it, an integral part of himself missing.

            Dipper stumbled away from the table, head pounding in time with his heartbeat as he made his way up the stairs and into the room that he and Mabel had shared their first few summers at Gravity Falls. Tucked away in the dusty closet, he found just was he was looking for: his old spell book.

            Dipper gently laid the spell book on the worn wooden floor, rubbing his hands together and cracking his knuckles as he readied himself to do what he hadn’t done for two years.

            Glancing around the room, he located a candle hidden behind piles of books on his desk. Standing in front of it, he closed his eyes and focused, feeling for the current of energy coursing through him as Stan had taught him to years ago. Dipper frowned in concentration; when he truly concentrated he could feel the magic, but only barely, sand that kept slipping out of his grasp. That wasn’t right; normally the magic inside of him felt like a rope, something firm and sturdy that he could tug on and would come rushing to his aid.

            Concentrating as hard as he was able, Dipper muttered the words of the spell under his breath, grasping the flow of magic as tightly as he could. Opening his eyes, Dipper saw that the candle in front of his was smoking slightly, the wick glowing red before it burned out completely.

            _What was happening?_

            Eyes widening in shock, Dipper repeated the spell, once, then twice, then three times, only stopping when the smoke trail vanished from the candle altogether. He rubbed his hand along the stubble of his jaw, pacing in front of the window that overlooked the forest.

            This wasn’t right; candle lighting was the first spell that Dipper had learned, it was supposed to be the easiest spell to perform. There was no reason for it to not to have worked. Unless . . . unless Dipper’s worst fear wasn’t unfounded, and Gravity Falls was, in fact, losing its magic.

~~~    

            Bill Cipher hummed in appreciation as he watched the young man perform the failed spell. It had taken the human a shorter amount of time than the demon had anticipated to figure out the trouble that the town was facing. The kid must have had more magic inside of him than Cipher had even realized.

            But how long would it take for Pine Tree to realize that he was going to have to turn to the demon for help? Bill laughed quietly in anticipation. He had been waiting for this moment for far too long.

~~~

            There was only one place that Dipper could think to go to when he was in need of magic, and that was the forest. As he made his way out of the Shack, he peeked a glance into the gift shop, where Mabel was chatting with a rather peppy looking tourist as Stan gathered a group of vacationers to take them on a tour. Dipper smiled faintly to himself; at least the others weren’t concerned about Gravity Falls. He slipped out of the Shack quietly, unnoticed.

            It felt good to be back in the forest despite its uncharacteristic silence. Dipper had spent so much time in its shadowy recesses throughout the summers that it had begun to feel like more like his home than California.

            He had come to know the forest like the back of his hand, so it took less than an instant for him to realize that something was terribly, terribly wrong. It was as if the entire forest was holding its breath; there was no sound save for the calm spring breeze rustling the leaves of the trees. Dipper could hear no birds singing, no crickets chirping, no squirrels angrily chattering at him from the safety of a high tree branch.

            Even stranger was the lack of paranormal creatures. Although they were careful about hiding themselves from human eyes, Dipper was usually at least able to sense the presence of the supernatural creatures if he wasn’t able to see them flitting about out of the corner of his eye. Dipper made his way through the forest warily, unsure what he was searching for.

            He had to travel farther than he expected to find what he was looking for. Finally Dipper sighed in relief, spotting a faerie along the path up ahead. They were sprightly creatures that he had had more than one bad encounter with as a child, but he had learned that as long as he didn’t provoke them they were practically harmless. As he came closer to the faerie on the path in front of him, he realized that something was terribly wrong with it.

            The small faerie lay on the ground, tiny chest rising and falling quickly with labored breaths. Dipper reached out to touch the small creature, its emerald eyes feebly opening and staring up at him with none of the zest that he had come to associate with the fiery beings. The creature tried to move away from Dipper, but was so weak that it was unable to do more than attempt to stand before it collapsed again. Dipper’s fingers ghosted along its paper-thin wings, gaze held trapped by the faerie’s luminescent eyes.

            He felt a tingling in his mind, something he hadn’t felt at all in three years, and a single phrase reverberated through his mind: _Help us_. Dipper’s eyes widened in shock; and he pulled back his hand as the soft glow ebbed out of the faerie’s wings. Its chest rose and fell slowly, until it did not rise at all.

Dipper stood up slowly, his mind spinning. So he hadn’t been imagining it; something terrible was indeed happening to Gravity Falls. And, unless he was mistaken, it must have something to do with why he couldn’t perform any magic.

He left the tiny body where it was, knowing that faeries had their own complex burial rituals that involved returning the body to the forest that had given it life. Dipper just hoped that there were enough faeries left to perform the ritual.

As Dipper walked farther along the path, he passed the shriveled corpse of a gnome, iconic red cap still in place. Dipper spotted a glittering scale on the ground as he walked on. Picking it up, he determined that it was a wyvern scale. He was another one a few feet ahead, and then a few more. A trail of the scales littered the ground, leading to a dark cave set off from the path. Dipper shuddered; he didn’t want to go in there. Healthy wyverns didn’t shed their scales to this degree.

Still he walked on, spirits sagging even lower. He passed the empty shell of a kappa next, followed by the skeleton of what could only be a kirin. The haunting visions of his nightmares had come to fruition. Dipper found himself unable to walk on, falling on his knees, hands clenched at his sides in fists.

It hurt him to see the creatures that he had grown up around suffering. He couldn’t take it anymore, something had to be done immediately. Anger coursed through him in hot waves; something like this didn’t just _happen_. Something, or someone, was taking the magic of Gravity Falls, and killing all of its creatures with it.

With a feeling of cold dread, Dipper knew what he was going to have to do. He couldn’t stand knowing that the forest and its creatures were suffering, and he would give anything he could to make it stop. He had the entire day ahead of him and he hoped that it wouldn’t take him long to find what he knew he would have to look for.

            He had the journal with him, and as he had learned in his childhood, it was really all that he needed to traverse the forest. Steeling himself against the thought of what he would have to do, Dipper ventured into the forest, the gloom soon swallowing him up entirely. There was only one creature powerful enough to help Gravity Falls, and like it or not, Dipper was going to have to turn to him for help.


	3. The cold rain from the coming storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from the song The Good Left Undone by Rise Against.  
> I realized I had seriously messed up the Stans' names in chapter one (I wrote most of this fic before Not What He Seems premiered, so this takes place in an alternate timeline) so I went back and fixed that.  
> I'm missunknownuser on tumblr as well, and I'll be posting links to new chapters on there too.  
> Thanks for reading!

Hours later, Dipper was no closer to finding what he was looking for. He traveled through the entire day, delving deeper into the forest than he had in years. A kind of zealous fervor drove him on, past the point of exhaustion and through the dull ache that eventually resonated throughout his entire body. Though it was a mild spring day, sweat ran down his face, occasionally dripping into his eyes and blinding him.

            Before he knew it the sun was setting, the last rays of evening light leaving mottled patterns on the forest floor. Dipper stopped for a moment, allowing himself to catch his breath.   Failure wasn’t an option. Dipper was too far into the forest to turn back now, and he had at least a _vague_ idea of where he was going. Normally he would just try to go to sleep to talk to the creature he was searching for, but with the essence of the forest so weak he didn’t think that it would be enough. He thought that if he could just get deep enough into the forest to reach a specific location marked in Journal 3 as a thin boundary between dimensions, that he might just have a chance at contacting the being he was seeking.

            So he continued on.

~~

            Dipper stumbled through the darkness of the forest, countless pairs of glowing eyes cautiously watching his journey. He wasn’t sure how long he had been traveling for but night had completely fallen by now and even though he knew the woods like the back of his hand, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to find his way back to the Shack.

            Eventually he could feel it, the area of the forest that he had only read about in the journal where the barrier between the dimensions was weakened, even moreso than where the Mystery Shack was. The page of the journal talking about the area, impossibly deep in the forest, had a large red X through it, the words “STAY AWAY” making the journal entry nearly impossible to read. But Dipper was desperate, and had little regard for his own safety when the safety of his forest was at stake. He would do what had to be done, regardless of the consequences on his own well-being.

            It started as a whisper in the back of him mind, a tickle that was easy to ignore. But as he delved deeper into the woods, Dipper was certain that he was hearing a voice in his mind that wasn’t his own. But then the voice doubled. Then it tripled. It wasn’t long before there was a chorus of different voices whispering inside his head.

            Dipper continued on, doing his best to ignore his head, which was pounding with one of the worst headaches he had ever had, the same two words echoing through his mind in countless voices: _Help us._

            The voices rose in fervor and pitch until they became a cacophony in Dipper’s head, blocking out all of his other thoughts until he could do nothing but scream in agony as they overtook him.

            Breaking into a full sprint, Dipper didn’t pay any attention to where he was going, only knowing that he had to get away, away, _away_ from the uproar in his mind. He cried out as he tripped over a root, falling to the ground hard, tumbling over and seeing a flash of the star-filled sky before his world went dark.

            Dipper awoke with a start. He was lying on the forest ground, but the scene around him was peculiarly familiar: the wind rustled the leaves of the trees at half speed and the entire forest was in grayscale. Smiling to himself, Dipper shakily stood up. He had done it.

            A blinding light appeared in the sky before him, a single eye popping into existence before a familiar triangular shape formed around it. As the light behind the figure faded, Bill Cipher floated toward Dipper, evaluating him as he twirled his cane.

            “Pine Tree! It’s been too long, kid. But it’s unlike you to come this far into my domain. You usually know better than this.”

            Dipper stared at the floating triangle icily. Bill Cipher stared back with a look that could only be described as smug, despite the lack of features on his face.

            The demon spread its hands placatingly. “Now, now, kid, I thought we were past all that. So tell me, what brings you so far from your precious Mystery Shack?”

            Still Dipper refused to answer, knowing that he shouldn’t give Cipher the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him. He needed to stay in control of the situation, not the other way around. Besides, he was sure that Bill already knew why Dipper had been looking for him.

            The demon floated in a lazy circle around Dipper. “I don’t suppose you came just to chat. But I don’t know what you’d be looking for this deep in the forest.”

            “I came here looking for you,” Dipper finally said, never letting his eyes leave the demon.

            Bill’s eye widened in faux shock. “You’re not here to make a deal, are you?”

            “Yes,” Dipper said, the single word seeming to echo through the mindscape.

            Bill crossed his arms, leaning back in a reclining motion. He regarded Dipper with a new fascination. “So, what can I do for you, kid?”

            “I don’t know what it is, but something is happening to Gravity Falls,” Dipper said, his voice ringing loud and clear in the void of the Mindscape. “I think that the magic is leaving. Or something is stealing it. The creatures are dying, and I can’t do any spells.” Dipper’s eyes hardened. “I saw you in my dream, Bill. I know that you have something to do with this, and I need to know what it will take to make you stop.”

            “You are intuitive, kid. I didn’t think you’d realize so quickly that there was something wrong. But I don’t have anything to do with it.”

            “You were in my nightmare. I know you’re a dream demon, Bill. If you’re the one who’s been giving me the nightmares, how am I supposed to believe that you’re not also the one tampering with the magic?”

            Bill held up his hands in faux surrender. “Hey, kid, stop throwing all these false accusations around! I’m not the one giving you the nightmares, and I don’t have anything to do with what’s happening to the Falls. I was eavesdropping on your dream, that’s it. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been going on in this town for months now.”

            Crossing his arms in front of him, Dipper scowled at the demon. “How am I supposed to believe you? I’m not going to take you at your word.”

            Bill shrugged. “Don’t believe me. But you’re still going to need to make a deal with me to fix whatever’s happened here.”

            Dipper was caught like a fly and they both knew it. “Okay then Bill, let’s make a deal. You know what I want. Name your price.”

            Bill just laughed. “Do you even know how much you’re asking of me? And you’re assuming that I can help you at all.”

            “You must be able to do something,” Dipper pressed with barely concealed anger, stopping himself from outright pleading with the demon.

            Bill stared at Dipper, calculating. “Well, there is _something_ that I can do.”

            When it became obvious that the demon wasn’t going to continue, Dipper spread his hands in aggravation. “Well?”

            “What I can do,” Bill paused, seemingly for dramatic effect, “is join your dimension to mine with a sort of filter, if you will. It’ll allow some of the magic from the Mindscape to seep into Gravity Falls, just enough to help the forest get back on its feet. The filter is to make sure that only magic comes through, nothing else, and that it’s only one-sided. It’s possible. But it’s gonna be remarkably difficult.”

            “So can you do it or not?” Dipper asked, hands trembling despite himself.

            “Does all-powerful dream demon mean nothing to you, kid? Of course I can do it! But it’s gonna come with a price.”

            “What do you want? My soul? To use my body as a puppet again?” Dipper knew that there would be a huge price for a deal as big as the one that he was proposing. Though the prospect certainly terrified him, it also excited him in a not entirely unpleasant way. It reminded him of the life-or-death situations that his childhood in Gravity Falls had been built upon, something that he had unwittingly sorely missed these past three years.

            Bill cackled. “Please, kid, what use would I have for those?”

            “Then what do you want?”

            “Restoring the magic of Gravity Falls is no easy task. It’s gonna use up all of my strength for a while.”

            Dipper didn’t respond; he just crossed his arms as the demon stared at him, unblinking. Bill knew that he had him; there was little Dipper wouldn’t agree to. Dipper just hoped against hope that the demon would go easy on him.

            “The force of joining the two worlds is going to pull me into your world, and the only way that it’s going to be able to do that is to turn me human.”                            

            Dipper struggled to keep a look of surprise off of his face, ultimately failing. He hadn’t even known that Bill _could_ turn human. Why had he used Dipper’s body as a puppet all those years ago if he could turn human himself?!

            “It’s gonna take a while, but eventually I’ll gain enough power back to return to the Mindscape and to my true form. I’ll do it anyway, under one condition: until I fully recharge and am able to return to my true form, I get to live with you, and you will provide for my basic needs.

            “But there’s one more thing,” Bill continued. “In order to bring the magic from the Mindscape to Gravity Falls, I need some sort of channel for the magic to flow through, something that’s been touched by both worlds enough to exist at least a bit in each. I’m not a good enough link without a corporeal body, I need a human body to channel the magic. I’m going to have to mark you.”

            Dipper nodded without hesitation. “Whatever it takes,” he agreed. “As long as Gravity Falls is restored to normal. But you only get to live with us under the condition that you won’t harm anyone, my family or otherwise, while you’re human.”

            “Aw, way to take the fun out of it!” Bill whined. “But very well. One more thing. I can restore the magic for now, but that’s not going to stop the fact that there’s a leak somewhere and that you’re going to have to find what’s causing it and stop it. Somethings big is happening, Pine Tree. This isn’t your usual demon deal.”

            Dipper nodded once. He had already expected as much.  

            Bill extended his hand, a blue flame springing from his palm and snaking up his arm. “So, do we have a deal, kid?” The reflection of the flame was caught in Bill’s eye, and Dipper had to tear his eyes away from the demon’s hypnotic gaze.

            Gritting his teeth, Dipper roughly grabbed the demon’s outstretched hand, watching as the wispy blue fire enveloped his arm.           

            “Let’s begin,” Bill said, moving his vise-like grip to Dipper’s wrist, keeping the man’s hand palm-up. With a snap of his fingers, a knife appeared in his free hand, and all Dipper was able to see was a flash of silver as Bill cut a line across the human’s palm.

            Dipper hissed in pain, pulling his arm back toward his body as soon as Bill let it go. “You could’ve warned me first,” he muttered.

            Bill didn’t spare him a look as he drew a circle in the ground around Dipper’s spilled blood. “Oh, you’re gonna feel worse pain than that before we’re through,” he assured flippantly. Wiping the remaining blood off on his shirt, Dipper watched as Bill drew a series of runes around the circle, muttering what sounded like a spell the whole time.

            Dipper felt a hot burning on his chest just above his heart, a faint sizzling noise sounding and a smell like burning flesh wafting up and making him feel suddenly faint.

            “Here comes the fun part!” Bill announced cheerily.

            In the next instant, Dipper felt a faint buzzing inside his mind, quickly growing in volume until it deafened him. The skin above his heart itched violently. All at once, it felt as though a wall inside his mind had been torn down, releasing a flood of he-didn’t-know-what. The next moment, there was a blinding flash, and Dipper felt as if his body was being torn apart. Visions flashed before his eyes, of things he had seen and of things he never would.

            With a final scream of pain, Dipper saw Bill’s triangular body explode into a blinding light, and then he saw nothing at all.


	4. I made a fist and not a plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother.

            When Dipper awoke, he was laying on the steps leading up to the shack, thoroughly soaked. It had been a sunny spring day when he first ventured out into the forest, but since then ominous black storm clouds had rolled in and the skies had opened up, wind howling through the forest and driving rain into his eyes. It was pitch black out; how late was it? His head throbbed and his vision was blurry, but he was able to shakily stand. It felt as though he had been run over by a truck; every inch of him hurt, and he felt whatever invisible wall inside his mind that had been torn open as a gaping hole. His head ached where he must have hit it when he fell and his body was covered in bruises and scratches from his plight through the forest. The skin above his heart burned where his t-shirt brushed against it.

            Next to him laid a man who looked around his age, maybe a little older. His blond hair was plastered to his forehead with rain and sweat and his face was twisted into a grimace. He was stark naked, and Dipper shrugged out of his jacket to cover the man, hissing as the wet fabric brushed against his cut palm.

            “Mabel!” Dipper called, lifting the unconscious man by his armpits and dragging him up the steps to the porch and out of the biting rain. He hoped his sister was still awake—for all he knew it may have already been the early hours of the next morning.

            The flimsy screen door burst open seconds later, Mabel rushing out to greet her twin, face twisted in concern as she tackle hugged him.

            “Dipper! Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you all day.” She held him out at arm’s length, studying him. “You look awful. What the hell happened?”

            “Sorry,” Dipper responded with a grimace, shying away from the embrace. “I know, I have some explaining to do, but I need you to help me get him into my room.”

            Mabel glanced at the man lying on the porch for the first time, looking utterly confused. “Who is that,” she asked slowly, “and why is he naked?”

            “I’ll explain later,” Dipper said, “I promise.”

            Between the two of them, the twins somehow managed to half carry half drag the taller man to Dipper’s room, laying him on Mabel’s old bed. After rummaging around in the closet for a bit, Dipper was able to find a musty pillow and a moth-eaten blanket. They would do for the time being, he thought, and draped the blanket over the unexpected guest.

            Dipper’s guess had been correct; it was already after midnight, so Stan had fallen asleep, having told Mabel that Dipper was a grown man who could be out as late as he wanted to. Mabel huffed with anger when she relayed their Grunkle’s words to Dipper. But Dipper was relieved; at least he wouldn’t have to answer to the old man tonight.

            “So do you want to tell me what happened? And maybe who this is? _And why is he naked_?” Mabel asked expectantly.

            “Tomorrow morning,” Dipper answered with a yawn. “Or, later this morning, I guess. Right now I can barely think straight.” His twin didn’t look happy, but she seemed to believe the excuse.

            “Do you want to sleep in my room tonight?” Mabel asked, glancing at her old bed apprehensively.

            Dipper rubbed the back of his neck, appraising the not-so-unfamiliar stranger in the corner of the room. “I think I’ll be okay in here,” he finally said. “Besides, I want to keep an eye on him.”

            Mabel nodded, though she didn’t look convinced. “Sleep well, bro-bro.”

            Not even bothering to shower, Dipper stripped himself of his wet clothes and fell asleep before his head hit the pillow. For the first time in months, he did not dream.

~~

            The first thing Dipper saw when he awoke the next morning was the bare ass of Bill Cipher’s human form, his blanket having been discarded on the floor at some point during the night. Dipper groaned and rolled over. What mess had he gotten himself into?

            He checked that Bill was still asleep and threw that blanket back over him before venturing downstairs. The instant Dipper entered the kitchen, he was wrapped in Mabel’s arms, face buried in her hair as she attempted to squeeze the life out of him. Glancing at the clock, Dipper saw that it was already noon; he rarely slept past nine, even on the weekends.

            “Thank God you’re finally awake,” she exclaimed, pulling away to study him. “We were worried. You still look like crap. What the hell happened?! And who is that guy?”

            “You’ve got a hell of a lot of explaining to do, kid,” Stan growled from his seat at the kitchen table.

            “It’s a long story, but I . . . I kind of made a deal,” Dipper began hesitantly. Mabel didn’t answer, she just kept staring at him as her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “With Bill Cipher.”

            Mabel’s jaw dropped. “What?!” she yelled. “Dipper, I thought you learned your lesson last time!”

            Stand hurriedly stood up, chair clattering to the floor behind him. “What the hell were you thinking, kid?” he yelled, fury in his eyes as his hands clenched into fists at his side. Dipper knew that anything having to do with Bill Cipher was a sore subject for his Grunkle; the demon was the Stans’ enemy and a large part of the reason why Ford had been trapped in an alternate dimension for thirty years.

            “I had to,” Dipper said, hands in the air in an attempted apology. “Let me explain.” He relayed to his family what had been happening to the magic, and how the only one he thought would be able to help was Bill.

            “You should’ve come to us first before rushing to make a deal with the devil; we could have figured something out.” Stan rubbed his hand over his face, suddenly looking his age. “I don’t even want to ask, but what did Bill want in return?”

            “Surprisingly, he didn’t want much. He wanted a favor of me whenever he decides to call on me, and the energy that it took for him to bring the magic in from the Mindscape temporarily turned him human, so he wanted to live with us until he’s able to take back his true form.” With a start, Dipper remembered Bill mentioning having to ‘mark’ Dipper, and the burning on his chest. He didn’t feel the need to mention that to his already anxious family, though.

            Mabel gaped at him. “So that’s Bill Cipher sleeping in your room upstairs?! The change in form explains why he’s naked, I guess.”

            “I do not want a demon living in my house,” Stan spat, “much less that son of a bitch.”    “I’m sorry,” Dipper said, realizing for the first time how much his deal was going to change the course of their summer, “but it was part of the deal. It’s only until he’s able to take his true form again. It won’t be for long, I promise.”

            Stan closed his eyes, visibly trying to calm himself before going on. “I think you got off very, very lucky, kid. I don’t know why the demon didn’t want more in exchange from you. You’d better watch your back around him. I don’t want to find out how he’s going to twist this deal on you, but you’d better be ready for when it happens.”

            “It sounds like we have a bigger problem than Bill Cipher if something is taking the magic of Gravity Falls,” Mabel said, frowning.

           

            After breakfast, Dipper sat across from Bill on his own bed, studying the young man as he fidgeted in his sleep. It was hard to imagine that the man lying in front of him was the demon who had haunted him and Mabel throughout their summers at Gravity Falls. His blonde hair flopped over his forehead, slightly longer than Dipper’s own and mussed from turning in his sleep. His complexion was darker than Dipper’s own pale, freckled skin, and his high, sloping cheekbones spoke of a foreign descent. His full lips were parted in his sleep, at times softly muttering words in a language that Dipper didn’t know.

            _Dammit,_ Dipper found himself thinking, _he’s hot_. He blushed at the thought; it had been quite some time since he had made the discovery that he was interested in boys as well as girls, but he certainly drew the line at finding a _demon_ attractive.

            Shaking his head, Dipper stood up and made his way to the shower; he was still disgustingly filthy from his trek through the forest, covered in dirt, dried blood, and other unidentifiable substances. Dipper’s t-shirt brushed painfully over his chest as he pulled it off, and he steeled himself in preparation of finally looking to see how Bill had marked him.

            Dipper’s eyes opened wide as he looked into the bathroom mirror; burned into the skin just above his heart was what looked like a brand. The skin was raised and red, oozing a clear liquid

            The brand was large, about the size of Dipper’s hand, and he instantly recognized it from years of studying the journals. It was Bill’s wheel.

            _Well,_ Dipper thought, _I guess I won’t be going shirtless in front of my family anytime soon._

            Bill was still asleep when Dipper was done showering, and he began to worry. He paced in front of his room, thoughts racing. Why would the demon agree to make the deal with him if he had known he would be in such a state afterward? Unless he _hadn’t_ known, in which case Dipper certainly didn’t want to be around when he woke up from his slumber.

            Dipper supposed that he would just have to deal with Bill’s rage when it happened, if it happened. Maybe he would never wake up; that would certainly make for an easy summer.

 

~~

            The family was just sitting down to dinner when they heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Bracing himself, Dipper turned to watch as Bill made his way down the stairs. It was time to see how much of a mistake he had actually made.

            The demon was clad in the clothes Dipper had laid by the bedside: an ill-fitting pair of Dipper’s jeans that were much too short and an overly baggy t-shirt. Dipper was just glad that he’d bothered to put on clothes before coming downstairs.

            As Bill came closer, Dipper was finally able to get a good look at the body that the had-been triangle now inhabited. He was about half a foot taller than Dipper, and lean in all the places puberty had filled out in the brunet. Bill’s eyes were a bright, piercing golden, framed by thick, dark lashes that only boys were lucky enough to be born with.

            The family eyed the blond man apprehensively, unsure what fury Dipper had unleashed on the household when he had agreed to let a demon stay with them. But Bill just padded toward them calmly, folding his gangly body into the empty chair across from Dipper.

            “What’s for dinner?” he asked flippantly. “I’m famished. I mean, it’s been a couple hundred years since I’ve eaten anything from this plane of existence.”

            Stan pushed away from the table indignantly, his chair scraping across the floor. “You’d better fix this mess, kid,” he growled to Dipper as he stalked out of the room. “I’m getting too old for this,” they heard him mutter to himself from down the hall.

            “What’s his problem?” Bill commented.

            “You are,” Dipper said coldly.

            “Oh, come on, kid!” Bill exclaimed. “Shouldn’t you be a little nicer to the person who so graciously gave up his multidimensional form to save your precious town from destruction?”

            Mabel glanced warily between the two men, hoping that Dipper knew exactly who he was messing with.

            Dipper wisely stayed quiet, glaring at the demon stonily.

            Bill cocked his head, a predatory glint to his eyes. “What’s wrong? Not thrilled about having a demon in your home?”

            “Leave him alone, Bill,” Mabel cut in coldly. Dipper glanced at her in surprise, and Bill let out a low chuckle. Mabel knew how much Bill had been able to get on Dipper’s nerves when they were children, and she wanted to avoid an outburst from her twin. There was no knowing what Bill would do if Dipper succeeded in pissing him off.

            “Careful, Shooting Star. You’d better be nice to me or else I’ll pluck your eyeballs from their sockets and hang you by them from the antlers of a stampeding deer.”

            Dipper sighed. “Don’t listen to him, Mabel. Part of the deal was that he’s not allowed to harm anyone in Gravity Falls while he lives with us. Besides, do deer even stampede?”

            “You’re no fun,” Bill grumbled.

            Mabel shot the demon a look that she usually reserved for Dipper when he had used the last of her expensive and hard-to-find hair product. “I think you’d better be careful, Bill. There was nothing in the deal saying that we can’t harm you, and I wonder how much you’d like your stay as a human without certain appendages.”

            A slow smile licked its way up Bill Cipher’s face. “This is going to be a fun summer.”


	5. Snake Eyed with a Sly Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Black Mambo by Glass Animals

After dinner, Dipper took Bill back up to his room, begrudgingly picking out clothes to loan to the demon until they could take him to buy his own.     

            “So how is this going to work?” Dipper asked as he picked out an old pairs of jeans that he thought would fit the taller man.

            “How is what going to work?” Bill asked with a confused tilt of his head.

            “This,” Dipper said in frustration, waving his hands as if to encompass the man standing before him. “You, here, in a human body, living with us.”

            Bill shrugged, taking a seat on the foot of Dipper’s bed as though he belonged there. “I’m going to be here until I gain my power back, Pine Tree. That was the deal.”

            “But what are you going to do while you’re here? Just be an unholy nuisance? Why was you living with us part of the deal, anyway?” Dipper’s anxiety was getting the better of him and he knew it, but the implications of his deal were finally beginning to dawn on him. He had allowed a demon of unimaginable power to come into his house and live with him and his family for an indeterminate amount of time. And while Bill was under oath to not harm any of the Pines while he was living with them, who was to say what he would do when the deal was over?

            Bill smirked, eyes calculating as he watched Dipper’s nervous movements. “Nuisance, yes; would you really expect any less of me? But I’m in a human body, kid! It has to be fed and cared for just like yours. I have no identity, no money, nowhere else to go, and at the least living in this dump for a couple of weeks beats roughing it out in the forest.”

            Dipper pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, letting out a frustrated sigh. “I just can’t figure out why you wanted so little in exchange for such a big deal. I was willing to give you anything; I know you could tell that. But you barely asked for anything, and you even sacrificed your powers, albeit temporarily, to save the forest. Why would you do something like that? What bigger plan do you have?”

            “Oh, so that’s how you see it,” Bill frowned, glancing at Dipper in a way that suggested that he took offense to the comment. “I may be a demon, Pine Tree, but I’m a supernatural creature too. I care just as much about Gravity Falls as you do, it’s my home just as much as it is yours. I’ve been able to feel the magic leaving for months now, but I was unable to do anything about it while trapped in the Mindscape. I needed someone to make a deal with me before I could do anything to help the matter.” Stepping forward, Bill’s fingers gently brushed over the spot on Dipper’s chest where his newly formed brand throbbed. Dipper eyed the demon warily, forcing himself to not back away from the touch. If he knew Bill at all, he knew that the worst thing he could do would be to show any weakness.

            As if sensing his thoughts, Bill smiled, revealing pointed incisors. “That’s what I needed you for—a channel through which the magic that belongs to the Mindscape could travel through to Gravity Falls.”

            “So that’s what this does?” Dipper asked, swatting Bill’s hand away.

            Nodding, Bill explained. “The brand is my sigil; it binds you to me, and thus to the Mindscape, letting its magic flow through you and into this world. Bet you have a bit of a headache. That’s why it hurt when we made the deal; humans aren’t meant to have magic flowing through them like that. But a human of Gravity Falls, well, that’s a different story.”

            “But I’m not from Gravity Falls,” Dipper pointed out, frowning.

            “Doesn’t matter, kid. The forest claimed you when you first stepped into it your first summer here. You’re as much a creature of Gravity Falls as I am a creature of the Mindscape.”

            Dipper was perplexed by the words, but decided to file that tidbit of information away for later. “Is it going to hurt me?”

            Bill shrugged, seemingly indifferent to the idea. “It shouldn’t. I mean, I don’t think it will—I’ve never made a deal quite like this before, it’ll be interesting to see the results.” He grinned, and Dipper couldn’t help but be reminded who was the predator and who was the prey in their relationship.

            “That’s comforting,” Dipper muttered. “So if you knew the magic was leaving for months, you had planned to make a deal with me even before I came looking for you?”

            “You, or any other meat sack stupid enough seek me out to make a deal,” Bill said with a shrug. “I would have preferred you, after how long I’ve tried to get you to make a deal with me, but I could hardly anticipate that you’d finally return this summer.” He glanced at Dipper, an accusatory glint in his eyes.

            “Yeah, well I’m starting to regret that decision,” Dipper muttered, letting out a long sigh.

~~

            It was strange to have another person living with them; stranger still that said person was the human embodiment of the dream demon who had posed as the twins’ enemy for so many summers of their childhood.

            The first week was trying on everyone’s nerves. Bill didn’t know what to do with himself and none of the Pines knew what to do with him either.

            Nights were quite the ordeal; there wasn’t anywhere for Bill to stay but in Dipper’s room, and as there was already an extra bed there it seem the best arrangement. However, not having a corporeal form for so long had led Bill to have very little in ways of a sleep schedule, and Dipper was often woken up in the middle of the night to mundane questions from Bill or to the sound of Bill talking to some supernatural creature that had somehow found its way to Dipper’s windowsill.

            During the days, Bill often took to following Dipper around like a lost puppy, joining the human on the tours he gave to gullible vacationers in search of entertainment. At times Bill would throw in commentary to the stories and mysteries that Dipper told to the tourists, which often ended with bawling children and parents glancing fearfully at the man with the golden eyes.

            “Don’t you have anything better to do than spend all of your time with us?” Dipper asked after one such instance, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly as he watched a frightened family peel out of the driveway. Well, they had paid to be scared, after all . . . .

            The demon looked miffed. “Are you saying that my company isn’t enjoyable, Pine Tree?”

            “I’m saying that you’re driving away all of the business away!” Dipper exclaimed in annoyance.  

            “It’s so boring!” the demon whined. “I don’t know how you can stand working in this dump all day. You barely get paid as it is and there’s so much else to do out there!” Bill gestured to the door with a grand sweeping motion; whether he was referencing the entire world or just Gravity Falls, Dipper wasn’t sure.

            “You’re welcome to leave anytime you want!” Dipper exclaimed irritably. Years of working in the Mystery Shack had made him unusually protective of it.

            Dipper sighed in defeat at the affronted look on Bill’s face. “Okay, fine. How about tomorrow we look around the forest a bit? I haven’t gotten to go out there much lately, and there’s something I’ve been meaning to look for.”

            Bill grinned excitedly, all teeth. “Excellent.”

\--

            “So what is it that you’re looking for, Pine Tree?” Bill asked the next morning as the two made their way through the forest. Dipper had insisted on getting an early start, and so the sun had just risen when the two began their trek.

            The demon seemed much more chipper now that he wasn’t cooped up inside. Dipper had the fleeting thought that Bill might have set fire to the Shack if he had been forced to spend any more time in it.

            “Well,” Dipper began, “ever since my first summer here with Ford’s journals, there was one creature in them that I was never able to find. A Phoenix. It’s said that their tears contain healing properties, which could come in handy. I’ve seen a few entries about them and always thought it was strange that I was never able to find one.

            “The last summer I was here, I started working on a map of the forest and the creatures’ territories within it. I realized that there’s a certain part of the forest that I had never been to, and I came across a few leads that led me to believe one of the creatures may be living there. I didn’t have time to go looking the last summer I was here before Mabel and I left, but I promised myself that I would go looking the next time we came back.”

            Bill nodded, but didn’t pass on any information about the creature, as Dipper had hoped he might. Dipper didn’t press the matter; he wanted to find out if he was right on his own.

~~

            The morning proved to be far less productive than Dipper had hoped.

            “Don’t you know where we’re going?” Dipper asked after the second hour they spent going in a circle.

            “Of course I do!” Bill responded cheerily.

            “Then why don’t you just take us there,” Dipper growled. He was hot, tired, had a blister forming on his left heel the size of a golf ball, and the demon was proving to be more of a nuisance than welcome company.

            “But Pine Tree,” Bill appraised him with wide, seemingly innocent eyes, “watching you get frustrated is so much more entertaining!”

            Dipper sighed in exasperation. “But you’re stuck here with me too!”

            Bill spread his hands wide. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

            Dipper ran a palm over his face. “Okay, well, if we are where I think we are, we need to go east in order t—“

            The sound of something crashing through the underbrush cut Dipper’s sentence short.

            “That sounded like something a lot bigger than a deer,” Bill remarked disinterestedly.

            Dipper was silent, straining to hear which direction the noise was coming from when it suddenly stopped. Dipper and Bill didn’t dare to move.

            All at once, a creature twice the size of a bear came charging out from the bushes, red eyes locked on Dipper. At first he thought that it had scraps of fabric hanging from its body, but Dipper realized that it was the creature’s skin hanging from its bones.

            Bill leapt in front of Dipper, holding his hands in front of him as if to ward off the creature. He shouted a harsh word in a language Dipper had never heard, and the creature stopped in its tracks, glowing eyes growing wide at it focused on Bill. The demon spat out a few more words, walking toward the being as the skeletal creature took a few tentative steps backward. It finally turned and fled, evidently deciding that the meal wasn’t worth the trouble.

            “What. Was. That,” Dipper panted as he scrambled up, “and what the fuck did you say to it.”

            “I don’t think humans have created a word for their kind yet.” Bill raised his lip in a sneer in the general direction in which the beast had disappeared.

            “I’ve never seen one of those before,” Dipper said in amazement. “There’s nothing about it in the journals.”

            “They only appear very rarely,” Bill said, frowning. “They live between worlds, and are attracted to magical leaks.”

            He studied the human out of the corner of his eye. “It must have been drawn into this dimension by our deal and attracted to you because of the sigil on your chest.”

            “What does that have to do with anything?” Dipper asked hesitantly, hand unconsciously moving to touch the brand beneath his shirt.

            “You reek of magic, and the creatures have been starved for months. It would have had a feast on you. You’re just lucky I was here,” Bill quipped, smiling self-appreciatively. “Though it sure would have been fun to watch it tear you limb from limb.”

            “Yeah, sure,” Dipper huffed as he began to continue the way they had been traveling.

            In the blink of an eye, Dipper found himself with his back pressed against the wide trunk of a tree, Bill’s arms locked on either side of him and little more than a hair’s breadth separating them.

            “Have you forgotten who you’re dealing with, Pine Tree?” Bill snarled into his ear. “I think you should be a little more grateful. One wrong move and it could be me who tears you limb from limb, and you’re lying to yourself if you think that I wouldn’t.”

            Dipper’s breath caught in his throat as Bill’s slender fingers ghosted over his jawline. The bark of the tree bit into his back as he shrunk away from the demon.

            Bill leered at him, taking the human’s discomfort as encouragement. Dipper’s breath hitched in his throat as the demon trailed a finger down his jugular, predatory smile growing wider as he felt the man’s racing pulse.

            Dipper could have sworn that just a moment ago he had seen Bill’s very blunt, very human looking fingers, but it felt as though the sharp claw of some animal was raking down his throat.

            “Even in this form, it would be so easy to just,” Bill’s nail suddenly dug into Dipper’s neck as he slid it downwards, “cut a little too deep.” The human stifled a gasp at the sharp sting.

            A small rivulet of blood ran down Dipper’s neck from the scratch and pooled in the hollow of his collar bone.

            Bill raised his finger to his mouth, maintaining steady eye contact with Dipper as he languidly licked the blood off of it.

            “You’d be wise not to forget that.”

            A breath of relief escaped Dipper as the demon stepped away from him, looking quite pleased with himself.

            Bill spun around suddenly, heading back in the direction the two had been traveling.

            Dipper’s cheeks burned as he watched the demon saunter away. What the _fuck_ was that?


	6. We frolicked about in our summer skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Summer Skin by Death Cab for Cutie

            Summer settled itself over Gravity Falls like a heavy, damp blanket as May faded into June. The days stretched longer, the nights waned shorter, and the Pines slowly grew used to living with a demon.

            The twins’ days were spent working around the Shack, cleaning and fixing up the ailing tourist trap whenever they weren’t working in the gift store or leading one of the tours around the property.

            Dipper found himself spending whatever free time he had inside the forest, documenting changes that had occurred in his absence and picking up where he had left off in his study of the paranormal creatures. It made him feel like a kid again and reminded him strongly of the summers spent in Gravity falls as a child. Bill usually trailed along behind him, and had even proven himself to be quite useful at times. When he was in a generous mood he would useful facts about the creatures that Dipper studied slip, which Dipper would hurriedly copy down into the journal that he had started keeping for himself.

            A number of paranormal creatures had suffered drops in numbers since the magic had begun draining from the forest, and Dipper was doing his best to survey the collateral damage. Oddly enough, he found that more of the more sentient creatures were willing to talk to him with Bill there, and the demon was even able to communicate with some of the creatures that couldn’t speak any human language. The sounds that Bill was able to produce didn’t seem to Dipper like they should have been able to come from a human mouth.

            Being able to talk more freely with the creatures was useful in another way: Dipper was able to start surveying them to see if he could find any clue as to what was draining the magic from the forest.

            Thus far, the magic that the two had brought back to Gravity Falls had remained there. Dipper’s nightmares hadn’t returned, and it seemed that the creatures of the forest were slowly recovering from the harrowing ordeal. The brand on Dipper’s chest slowly began to heal, leaving puckered white scar tissue in place of the angry red burn. Dipper knew that he was going to have the scar for the rest of his life, and if anyone outside of his family ever saw him with his shirt off, he was going to have some explaining to do . . . .

            It took some convincing from Bill and Mabel, but Dipper finally stopped desperately worrying about what had been happening to the forest. Bill had told Dipper that he would be able to perform a few spells to determine the source of the magic loss when he was restored to his true form. Stuck in the Mindscape, Bill initially hadn’t been able to determine what was draining the magic, but now that Dipper formed a link between the Mindscape and Gravity Falls, Bill would have an easier time of it.

            Dipper found that he had settled into life with Bill Cipher fairly easily, a fact that never failed to unnerve him. Contractually obligated to live with the Pines and unable to harm any of them until he was able to return to his isosceles self, the demon proved to be little more than annoying at worst and tolerable at best. And as the days turned into weeks, Dipper found himself finally about to wind down and relax, slipping quietly into a lazy summer routine.

~~

            In the three years that the twins had been gone, Stan had really let the Mystery Shack fall apart. Soos moving away to live with long-lost relatives and Wendy leaving for college and then graduate school left Stan to fall on a constant cycling of new employees who never proved to be trustworthy and rarely lasted more than a month or two. The added work needed to keep the gift store and tours running had left Stan little time to do handy-work around the house, so the twins had taken it upon themselves to help their great uncle in this department.

            For the past week, Stan had agreed to let Dipper forgo giving tours in lieu of doing much-need repair work to the roof of the Shack. Dipper wasn’t usually very handy with things like this, but after one particular thunderstorm during which the occupants had spent the night running to and from the kitchen to empty pans strategically placed to capture the rivulets of rainwater leaking in through the countless cracks in the ceiling, Dipper had decided that fixing the roof was a necessity. He had wanted to hire someone to come and just replace the entire thing for them, but Stan had refused on the grounds that it would cost too much money and wasn’t ‘essential’.

            Grumbling, Dipper had decided to simply patch the holes himself, hoping that it would keep at least most of the water out.

            One such day found Dipper perched precariously on the roof, the early afternoon summer sun slowly burning through the humidity of the morning.

            Bill was lounging on the roof near him, sipping on a glass of iced tea as he watched the human work.

            “You know, you could make yourself useful around here,” Dipper said as a means of conversation.

            Bill made a sound of contemplation. “But I like _watching_ you work so much more,” he finally asserted.

            Dipper scoffed, but didn’t press the issue. Having the demon uselessly watching him work was still better than being constantly antagonized by him. He rolled out a new sheet of roofing, kneeling on it to keep it from rolling back on itself. Reaching for a nail to secure the corner of the sheet, Dipper groaned as he realized that the box of nails he had been using was empty, the full boxes residing next to the demon and too far for him to reach.

            “Can you hand me that box of nails?” Dipper asked Bill warily as he held down the sheet of shingles as they attempted to curl back up, unable to let go until he nailed them in place.

            Bill’s eyes shot to the boxes by his feet as he picked one up, smiling. “I could,” Bill mused, taking a nail out and rolling it between his fingers. “But it’s so much more fun watching you get flustered.”

            Dipper rolled his eyes. In place of wreaking magical havoc on Gravity Falls and its inhabitants, Bill had taken up being a snide asshole.

            Using his arm to wipe some of the perspiration off of his face, Dipper glared at the dawdling demon. The days spent working outside in the early summer’s heat had given Dipper quite the farmer’s tan, and he could feel the beginnings of a sunburn prickling on the back of his neck.

            “C’mon, Bill,” Dipper growled. Much to his denial, he was growing used to the demon walking all over him. “At least try to make yourself useful.”

            “Oh, Pine Tree, surely your mother taught you manners,” Bill responded with faux offense. “How do you ask nicely?”

            “Give me the fucking nails you useless piece of shit,” Dipper growled.

            Bill laughed delightedly. “That doesn’t sound very polite to me! I guess you don’t really need this, then.” 

            Dipper sighed; he could either stay crouched under the baking sun, or he could give in to the demon. “Please,” the man finally spat out.

            “That didn’t sound very sincere,” Bill mused, “but I suppose it’ll do for now.” He smiled smugly, getting up to give Dipper the box of nails.

            “All of this manual work is doing you well, Pine Tree,” Bill remarked as he crouched next to Dipper, finally handing him the nail. He ran a long finger down the junction of Dipper’s shoulder blades, following the contour of his spine. “You’re finally getting some muscles.”

            Dipper shuddered under the demon’s touch, feeling like a piece of meat being scrutinized by a butcher, and silently wished that he hadn’t taken his shirt off. The demon was like this at times; either he wasn’t as attuned with human nature as he claimed and he didn’t know that his actions weren’t quite appropriate, or he was purposefully being a creepy asshole.

            “Fuck off,” Dipper muttered under his breath.

            The demon cackled and clapped his hands delightedly; he loved it when he was able to get a rise out of Dipper. “Feisty, Pine Tree!”

~~

            Despite himself, Dipper often found himself studying the demon when he wasn’t looking. It fascinated him, the way that Bill could perfectly pass as a human. He had no boundaries sometimes, sure, and often talked about disturbing topics, but for the most part he was no different from any other human.

            A long time ago, when Dipper had first met Bill in all of his triangular glory and the demon had possessed his body, Bill had commented how he used to have a human body. He had never elaborated, but Dipper had always been curious to know the full story. Had Bill been born a human and eventually became a demon? Or was this body he mentioned just another poor human who had made a deal with the devil?

~~

            “Pine Tree, look!” Dipper groaned into his cup of coffee as he heard the demon’s chipper voice come charging down the stairs. After a long week of work it was finally Friday, and Dipper was hoping for a quiet day before the weekend rush. The three had the morning shift off and, true to form, Mabel and Bill were still bright eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to start the day. Oddly enough, Mabel had warmed up to Bill’s presence much faster than Dipper had been able to, and had taken to using him and a canvas for some of her new makeup designs. Dipper was just grateful that he wasn’t the one sporting fake eyelashes and perfectly groomed eyebrows anymore.

            Letting out a sigh, Dipper turned to see what new masterpiece Bill’s face had been turned into. However, he gave a start at the sight of Bill sporting an unusual new haircut. Bill’s blond hair had been growing unruly lately, and Mabel had flippantly offer to cut it for him, Dipper never expecting Bill to take her up on the offer.

            “What do you think?” Mabel asked as she walked in, beaming.

            Dipper tilted his head as he studied the demon. The top of his hair had for the most part been left alone, but Mabel had buzzed the sides of Bill’s hair and dyed them black. The shock of blond hair at the top of his head was a stark contrast to the black undersides, and it reminded Dipper uneasily of Bill’s triangular form.

            “It’s called a two-toned undercut,” Mabel explained, using her fingers to comb through Bill’s fringe. Surprisingly to Dipper, Bill allowed her to.

            “It’s. . . nice,” Dipper finally allowed.

            Bill’s expression immediately fell; he had obviously expected more of a response. Mabel gave Dipper a patronizing look and he immediately felt guilty for not giving Bill more affirmation.

            “It looks good on you,” Dipper said earnestly, words coming out softer than he had anticipated. “Really.”

            The demon perked up a bit at this, grinning at Dipper in a way that completely disarmed him before bounding out of the room.

            Mabel gave Dipper a strange look before following Bill out of the kitchen, leaving Dipper alone to drink his coffee in silent contemplation.

 

~~

            The family often went into town on the summer nights, getting ice cream or just walking around, talking about their time at college and catching up with the locals. As the twins had expected, not much had changed in their absence.

            Dipper hadn’t expected Bill to join them on these outings, but the demon had taken them in stride, and had even looked slightly hurt when Dipper suggested that he had thought the demon would rather stay behind. But Bill was adamant about living his newly acquired human life to the fullest, and accompanied Dipper wherever he went.

            The townspeople barely took note of Bill’s sudden presence, easily buying the explanation that he was Dipper and Mabel’s friend from California who had come with them for the summer to work at the Mystery Shack.

            It was during one of these trips to town that Dipper and Mabel found out something that floored them both: Gideon was back in town, having been let out of jail for good behavior when he turned 18.

            Though he had certainly fallen out of the town’s good graces when it had been discovered that he was spying on everyone, Gideon was trying his damnedest to restore his good name. He was often seen around town doing small acts of charity, and there was a whispered rumor that he was inventing some for the town that would change their lives as they knew it.

            Due to a very successful business venture, Bud Gleeful had once again come into quite a bit of money. He had used a portion of the money to build Gideon a sprawling mansion on a lone hill on the outskirts of town. Dipper and Mabel suspected that after eight years not under the same roof as the white-haired terror, Bud and his wife had grown used to not having to deal with their devil of a son and had come up with an excuse to send him away.

            On nights that the family didn’t spend together, Mabel would go out with her friends. Though she hadn’t seen Grenda or Candy in a few years, the three picked up just where they had left off. Over the summers of their childhood Mabel and Pacifica had formed an unlikely friendship as well, and the blonde had slowly become a common addition to the small group of friends.

            Dipper had never made many close friends in Gravity Falls, and if he and Mabel ever went out alone it would leave Bill in the house alone with Stan, which wasn’t a combination that Dipper was comfortable with. So, he resigned himself to spending many a night at the Mystery Shack, and had fallen into an uneasy routine of watching movies with Bill whenever the two became bored.

            For a couple of weeks, the Pines’ life was surprisingly peaceful for having a demon as a housemate.


	7. You are my favorite "what if?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Fourth of July by Fall Out Boy  
> ~I was a bit lax in editing this chapter, so if you see any errors please point them out!~  
> As always, countless thanks to everyone who had been reading!

            It was only a couple of weeks later, late June, when the nightmares started again, worse than ever. Dipper awoke panting in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat with his bed sheets twisted around his legs and bunched into his fists. His heart was galloping in his chest, and he couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. Evidently he had dug his fingernails into his arm in his sleep, bloody half-moons now dotted across the sheets. It had been the same nightmare as always, the one that he thought had finally stopped when he brought back the magic to Gravity Falls. Dipper let his head fall into his hands, tiredly rubbing circles over his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to go through months of this torture again. He had thought that he was finally done with the night terrors.

            “Pine Tree?” called a bleary voice from across the room. Still on edge, Dipper’s head shot up to stare at the source of the sound, seeing a sleepy Bill rubbing his eyes as he sat up from his bed. Despite his current state, Dipper couldn’t control the hint of a smile that ghosted across his face; Bill didn’t usually look so vulnerable and, well, human.

            “What happened? Why were you screaming?” Instead of the haughty look that Dipper had expected, Bill just looked at him in puzzlement, with perhaps a bit of . . . concern?

            “Oh, it was nothing,” Dipper responded as coolly as he could, heart still racing as he fought to return his breathing to normal. “Sorry I woke you up, I’m fine, you can go back to sleep.”

            Bill regarded the boy silently for a moment, then, “You have nightmares.” It was a statement, not a question.

            Dipper was silent for a moment, unwilling to show any weakness to the demon that he had somehow ended up sharing a house with. But he was tired and unable to think of any other explanation. “Yeah,” he answered. “They only got bad in the last few months, though. They went away once we restored the magic, but this one was . . . worse.”

            Bill nodded in contemplation, looking somewhat more concerned. Dipper was reminded that he was, in fact, a dream demon. “You’re having them again because you’re the link between the forest and the Mindscape. This must mean that the forest is being drained of its magic again. The nightmares are only going to get worse until we figure out what’s happening.”

            “We will,” Dipper said determinedly, though his spirits flagged at Bill’s words. A few moments passed, and Bill still made no move to lay back down. “You can go back to bed,” Dipper repeated. “I’m fine.” He found it strange that he was assuring the demon of his well-being; surely Bill didn’t give a shit either way.

            Bill stared at Dipper for a few moments, seeming to be deciding on what to do. “Hang on,” he finally said with a sigh, pulling his bed out of the corner of the room and pushing it so that it was flush with Dipper’s.

            “W-what are you doing?!” Dipper asked in alarm as the demon settled himself into his own bed, now much too close to the human for both of their comfort.

            “Dream demon, remember, kid?” Bill said. “I can help you with the nightmares, but as weak as I am in this form, I have to have skin contact.” As if to prove his point, he laid his hand over Dipper’s, foreign skin cool to the touch. “And I surely don’t think you’d want to share the same bed as me.”

            “You don’t have to do this,” Dipper said warily. “I can deal with the nightmares.”

            His only response was a low, somewhat sinister chuckle. “Go to sleep, kid.”

            And with a gentle touch to his temple, Dipper found that he had no choice but to obey the demon’s command.  

~~

            The next morning, Bill was gone by the time Dipper awoke. Groaning, he rubbed his eyes as he recalled the events from the previous night. Surprisingly, he felt more refreshed than he had in days; it had been the best night of sleep that he had gotten in a long time. It seemed only fitting that his best night’s sleep should come as the result of a demon sleeping at his bedside.

            Later that evening, after a long day of work giving tours to gullible families and selling overpriced souvenirs, Bill and Dipper broached the topic of the nightmares with Mabel.

            Mabel looked concerned; she had known for a while that Dipper had nightmares, but knowing the cause of them gave her an uneasy feeling. “Can the forest hurt Dipper through the nightmares?”

            Bill contemplated the question for a moment before finally shaking his head. “As long as I keep driving the nightmares away, Pine Tree should be fine. The worst they can do with me here is scare him. Which isn’t their goal; the forest isn’t trying to hurt or scare Pine Tree, it’s just trying to reach out to any lifeline it has for help.”

            He didn’t mention exactly how he was keeping the nightmares away, for which Dipper was grateful. He wasn’t quite ready for Mabel to know that the demon had slept next to his bed last night, regardless of the reason.  

            “So now that it’s an issue again, how exactly do we go about figuring out what’s happening to the magic?” Dipper asked worriedly.

            Bill frowned as he thought. “It would be a lot easier for me to determine how the magic is leaving if I was in my true form. I’m far from omnipotent in this body, and I can hardly do any magic until some of my power is restored.”

            Dipper decided that he would file that tidbit of information away for later; that was certainly interesting.

            “That being said,” the demon continued, “while I’m in this useless meat sack, we can at least do some brainstorming. There aren’t many things that can cause this level of catastrophe, so my bet is that someone got their hands on a very old, very powerful spell, or some sort of cursed object.”

            Dipper thought about this for a moment before speaking up. “Well, Stan has a good amount of books on magic and spells, and I know for a fact that some of the books in the town library in the fantasy section are actually history books. Maybe we could start by researching?”

            “It’s as good a plan as any,” Bill affirmed.

~~

            The two settled in to an unspoken routine: every night Bill would sleep next to Dipper’s bed, holding onto his hand to ward off the nightmares. And every morning, Bill would be gone by the time Dipper had woken up. It wasn’t as awkward as it would have been if they were sharing the same bed, but for Dipper sleeping next to a demon night after night was disconcerting nonetheless.

            If Mabel took note of the new setup of the beds in Dipper’s room she didn’t comment, and Stan surely didn’t pay enough attention to his nephew to notice what his room looked like.

~~

            “So what is this holiday that you humans celebrate?” Bill asked as he held up one end of a banner that Dipper tacking to the front porch of the Mystery Shack.

            It was a hot, sunny day in Gravity Falls. Summer was in full swing, and puffy white clouds crawled languidly across the sky. The cicadas were out in full force, their high-pitched cadence providing the perfect white noise for the day’s festivities.

            “Independence Day?” Dipper mumbled through the corner of the banner he was holding in his mouth. He took the rumpled material out of his mouth as he stretched to try to tack it even with the side Bill had already hung. “It’s the day that America gained independence from Great Britain.”

            “I know that,” Bill said with a petulant roll of his eyes. “I was there. But why do you celebrate? And why with fireworks?” Dipper struggled to tack up the end of the banner; Bill had secured his end higher than Dipper could reach.

            “I don’t know,” he grunted irritatedly.

            He reached up higher, and almost . . . almost. . . . With a final stretch, Dipper dug the tack into the beam of the porch and promptly lost his balance, falling off of the flimsy lawn chair he had been standing on and landing flat onto his ass.

            Bill cackled from the other end of the porch, holding his stomach as he doubled over.

            “Oh, Pine Tree, you are too much,” he wheezed. “You don’t even need me to embarrass you; you manage to do it all by yourself!”

            Scowling at the demon, Dipper stood indignantly, admiring the slightly crooked banner. It would do.

            “Why are you so interested in the fireworks, anyway?” he grumbled.

            “It seems violent and excessive,” Bill snorted. “I like it.”

            The brunet just rolled his eyes in response; he should have known. Bill was only interested in things that had to do with chaos and destruction.

            “And why is the party at this dump?” the demon continued with a sneer. “Don’t you have somewhere nicer in town to hold a summer festival?”

            Dipper laughed; though he probably should have felt insulted over the stab at the Mystery Shack, he understood Bill’s confusion completely. “They actually used to hold the party at the lake,” Dipper said, “but Stan changed that some years ago.”

            “How did the old swindler manage that?”

            “Well, as you may have noticed, Stan has a way of getting around the law. The town used to put on their own fireworks display, but it was always less than impressive. One year Stan decided that he would put on his own show and he got some of his buddies to smuggle in illegal fireworks. He put on such a great show that Blubs and Deputy Durland turned a blind eye to it. Every year since Stan has had his own party here at the Mystery Shack. He charges a ridiculous entrance fee, but I have to admit that he really makes it worth it. Even if Mabel and I end up doing most of the work because he’s too cheap to hire any temporary employees.”

            Bill laughed. “Typical.”

~~

            The townspeople started arriving in the afternoon, begrudgingly paying the lofty entrance fee and setting out picnic blankets on the lawn

            Dipper had to admit that Stan threw a good party when he wanted to; he knew how to pull out all the stops when he had the secure promise of an excessive profit. He had rented a bouncy house for the kids, and had even dug an old kiddie pool from somewhere in the shack that that the youngest of partygoers were happily splashing about in.

            As per usual, however, Stan had hired far too few workers to help out with the barbecue, leaving Dipper and Mabel to run around trying to cover far too many jobs. Even Bill pitched in where he could, evidently intimidated by Stan’s threat of throwing him out, deal be damned, if he didn’t get to work.

            Dipper was in charge of the grill, taking people’s orders, and hurriedly attempting to cook the meat to satisfaction. When it came down to being of any use, Bill seemed unsure of himself, and ended up sticking to Dipper’s side like glue, relaying the townspeople’s orders to Dipper and taking charge of taking their money.

            Mabel took charge of drinks, alcoholic and otherwise, and if any of the townsfolk had doubts as to whether or not she was of legal drinking age, they chose not to voice them.

            As soon as it was dark out the children brought out glow sticks and bracelets, waving sparklers near the edge of the forest amid the fireflies that danced betwixt the partygoers.

            Before long, the mass of people began to gather towards the middle of the property, children sitting on their parents’ shoulder to get a better view, restless in eager anticipation of the show that was soon to come.

            “What are they doing?” Bill asked Dipper with a frown as the two cooked the few remaining orders.

            “Oh, the fireworks must be starting soon!” Dipper exclaimed. Bill looked unimpressed, but then again Dipper supposed that there wasn’t much that really could impress an ancient dream demon.

            However, Dipper was proven wrong when the first few fireworks went off and Bill’s eyes grew wide as saucers, barely distinguishable from those of the children.

            Bill laughed delightedly. “They’re so loud and destructive. I love it!”

            Dipper gave the demon a strange look. “Have you ever seen a firework show before, Bill?”

            “I’ve got better things to do!” the demon exclaimed haughtily, attention instantly returning to the show before them.

            Dipper glanced at Bill out of the corner of his eye. The multicolored lights from the fireworks gently illuminated the demon, softening the edges of his face into something more human than devil. His eyes were wide in what appeared to be awe, reflecting the colors of the fireworks before they stole away to shadow, only to shatter his irises once again.

            “You’re really enjoying this, huh?” Dipper asked softly, a lilting laughter to his voice.

            “Oh, yeah, kid!” Bill exclaimed. “This reminds me of this time in the eighteenth century when—,” Bill launched into a long, brutally graphic tale that ended with Dipper feeling a bit light-headed.

Dipper mouth opened and closed like a fish, but he stayed wisely silent. _Well, that certainly ruined the moment,_ he thought, and then silently cursed himself for thinking that any sort of ‘moment’ had just happened.


	8. Some truths are hard to define

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from South by Sleeping at Last  
> Sorry that this update took a bit longer, I've been busy with classes. Thanks for reading!

            “Do you want to go to Greasy’s for breakfast?” Mabel asked Dipper the next Monday morning after a particularly late night spent reading.

            “Definitely,” Dipper said as he took a sip from his coffee, rubbing his bloodshot eyes blearily. “I could do with a change of scenery.”

            “What about you, Bill?”

            “Hmm?” the demon replied from his seat on the couch, watching one of the cartoons that he was so amused by.

            “Want to go get breakfast at Greasy’s?”

.           Bill wrinkled his nose in distaste. “That dump? Is the food there even edible?”

            “Oh, come on!” Mabel exclaimed, “You haven’t even been there before.”

            Dipper rolled his eyes, and with a bit of persistence Bill gave in to him, as he often did, and agreed to come.

            The town of Gravity Falls had barely changed in the three years that the twins had been absent. There was a new cheesy souvenir shop and one of the restaurant had built an addition, but otherwise the town was as unchanged as its inhabitants. Greasy’s was the same as always, low-quality food served at lower prices, and all of the usuals were still found inside it. Lazy Suzan still worked at the hole in the wall despite her advancing age, though not as many days as she used to.

            Before they could even sit down, the three were confronted with a memory from their past that they would all have rather forgotten.

            “Mabel Pines!” they heard a voice exclaim in a painfully familiar southern drawl. Exchanging twins looks of horror, Mabel and Dipper turned around slowly to see none other than Gideon Gleeful approaching them, a friendly smile plastered across his face.

            The man had grown taller over the years, and his hair, still the characteristic white, had grown shorter. He had never outgrown the childish chubbiness or freckles, the combination of which served to give him a youthful appearance.

            “And Dipper Pines! It has been _far_ too long! How are my favorite twins doing?”

            “Ah, hi Gideon,” Mabel said reluctantly. Dipper didn’t respond.

            “Oh, I don’t believe we’ve met before. Gideon Gleeful,” he said, grabbing and shaking Bill’s hand enthusiastically. Bill was seething, barely able to control his hatred toward the white-haired man who had summoned and then turned on him so many years ago.

            “This is Stan’s new employee, Bill, uh, Smith. He’s just here for the summer,” Dipper quickly cut in.

            “Pleased to meet you, Bill,” Gideon said, still smiling. “I hope the town’s been treating you well.”

            “And how did prison treat you, Gideon?” Dipper asked brazenly.

            An icy look flitted across Gideon’s face before quickly being replaced with the trademark smile. “Oh, you’re not still caught up on all that, are you? It’s been what, nine years since that summer? I’m a changed man! I say let bygones be bygones, don’t y’all agree?”

            Mabel and Dipper glanced at each other

            “Sure,” Dipper said slowly, and not at all genuinely.

            “Wonderful!” Gideon exclaimed. “Well, I must be going, but we have to catch up soon! G’day, Pines! Nice to meet you, Bill.”

            With a wave, Gideon was gone, leaving the speechless twins in his wake.

            “I hate that boy,” Bill spat.

            “I think I just lost my appetite,” Dipper muttered as the three sat in a booth.

            “Maybe he really is trying to change for the better,” Mabel said with a frown. Dipper didn’t respond; it was just like his sister to give anyone and everyone the benefit of the doubt, even child masterminds that they had fought as children. But not even Mabel looked convinced by her words.

~~

            Days upon days of reading ancient tomes that Stan had collected over the years proved to be futile; they were no closer to discovering the mystery of the disappearing magic. They had moved on to the library, checking out any book with the word ‘magic’ or ‘supernatural’ that they could find.

            Dipper wasn’t sure what they were even looking for. There was a small amount of ancient cursed objects and long-forgotten spells that may have had the magic to cause such a fate to befall Gravity Falls, but there was no way to tell whether they would still work or who could have gotten their hands on them.

            The strain of being the magical mediator was taking its toll on Dipper; the town was frightened, and it was calling out to him for help. The headaches were getting worse, and anytime Dipper entered the forest the minds of its inhabitants called to him, “ _Help us . . . help us . . . .”_

            Bill had tried explaining to Dipper how the magic of Gravity Falls had made the forest, and in turn, the town, sentient, but Dipper had trouble understanding the complexities of it all.

            Dipper and Bill had fallen into a strange routine; every night, Bill would join Dipper next to his bed, the two as far apart as they could be, linked only by their hands. Every morning, Bill was gone by the time Dipper woke up. While the unspoken arrangement still made Dipper feel uneasy, he reasoned that it was better than the alternative of horrifying nightmares and sleepless nights.

~~

            “I’m beginning to regret our deal of me living with you,” Bill said one night later that week as the two flipped through library books after a long day of work at the Mystery Shack.

            Dipper’s head shot up in surprise. “By all means, leave. But why?’

            Bill sighed dramatically, closing the book that he had been reading. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy. A deal’s a deal. But I’m so bored of reading all of the time.”

            “Yeah,” Dipper agreed, “this isn’t really how I planned on spending my summer either.” When it became evident that Bill didn’t intend to continue the conversation, Dipper turned his attention back to reading, aware of Bill’s golden eyes boring into him.

            “Bill, come look at this,” Dipper said, finally stumbling across something of interest: an amulet that could harness and store magic.

            Bill pushed back tiredly from the table, stretching as he walked to where Dipper was seated, leaning next to the human to read the passage.

            “Hmm,” the demon considered, shifting closer to Dipper as his golden eyes narrowed in contemplation. “This could definitely be something.”

Bill was standing closer to him that usual, and Dipper’s body was paying rapt attention. He felt his cheeks flush at the demon’s proximity, and just hoped that Bill wouldn’t notice. Why would he react this way to the demon? Dipper wondered angrily, deciding to just chalk it up to the fact that the triangle had managed to make a very attractive body for himself.

            Dipper’s hand reached out to turn to the next page of the book just as Bill’s did, and their fingers brushed against each other, causing Dipper to jerk his hand back as if it had been scalded. Bill gave him a strange look, but said nothing, turning his attention back to the amulet.

            “Oh,” Bill said disappointedly, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. “It says that it was destroyed more than a century ago.”

            But Dipper was no longer paying attention to the contents of the ancient book; all he could focus on was how he could feel Bill’s body heat radiating off of him and how being this close to the blond had never bothered him before.

            The demon turned to Dipper then, and Dipper started at the soft look in his eyes. The human felt unable to look away, noticing vaguely that the demon’s face seemed to be getting closer to his.

“It’s Gideon!” Mabel exclaimed as she burst through the front door, startling Dipper and Bill. The two jumped apart as if touched by electricity, Dipper’s face turning a brilliant shade of red. Bill looked embarrassed and just a bit less composed than normal, he noted smugly.

            “What about him, Shooting Star?” Bill asked, pointedly not looking at Dipper.

            “He’s the one who’s been stealing the magic!” Mabel’s eyes were gleaming with victory, and she was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement, obviously oblivious to the scene that she has just walked in on.

            Dipper and Bill scrambled up from where they had been sitting on the floor. “How do you know?!” Dipper asked eagerly.

            “I was in Greasy’s with Candy and Grenda and I overheard Gideon talking to this strange man with a briefcase. He was saying that ‘the plan was in motion’ and that ‘the test had already worked’. He said that ‘the energy source had been stabilized’ after months of inactivity, and that totally makes sense with when you guys restored the magic. But listen, he said that they planned to make a public announcement soon to gain support, and it didn’t sound like that’d be too far away.”

            The three exchanged looks of victory; after weeks of nothing they finally had a breakthrough.

            Mabel kept talking, Bill listening raptly, but Dipper suddenly had a hard time focusing on her. Her voice slowly faded and it was as if Dipper was underwater, sinking lower and lower and peering up at her through a haze.

            “You okay, bro-bro?” Mabel asked, pausing mid-sentence to glance at her brother worriedly.

            “Yeah, I think I’ve just been staring at these books for too long,” Dipper heard his voice say, struggling to blink away the fog he found himself in. A slight buzz filled his mind, and he heard the whispered voice of the forest, “ _Help us, help us, help us . . .”._ Dipper collapsed onto the ground, writhing and clutching at his head in agony; it felt as if he was being torn apart at the seams and the brand on his chest burned as it had when Bill had first given it to him.

            “Pine Tree!” he was dimly aware of Bill yelling as his hands were wrenched away from his face, a concerned demon suddenly taking up his entire field of vision.

            Bill’s hands replaced Dipper’s own at his temples, the demon’s eyes closed and brows furrowed in concentration. Slowly, the pull on Dipper’s mind began to ease, and blackness overcame him.

            When Dipper came to, he was lying on the couch, Mabel and Bill hovering over him in apparent concern. Bill was gently running his fingers through Dipper’s hair, hands fidgeting nervously as if he was afraid to break contact with the human.

            “Are you okay?” Mabel asked worriedly.

            “I think so,” Dipper said, holding a hand to his head as he slowly sat up. “What happened?”

            The two looked to Bill, waiting for an answer. The demon looked weary, and he was leaning on the back of the couch looking as though he wouldn’t have been able to stand up without it.

            “It’s the forest,” Bill finally said, the corners of his mouth pulled down. “It’s only been able to call out to you for help in your sleep or when you’re inside its boundaries, but as it pulls more magic through you from the Mindscape, the link between you is growing stronger. It’s able to call to you for help while you’re awake now, too.”

            “So what does that mean for Dipper?” Mabel asked, forehead wrinkling in worry.

            Bill looked uncharacteristically concerned as he studied Dipper. “It means that we have to stop Gideon soon.”

~~

            “Shooting Star?” Mabel looked up from the fake nails she was painting when she heard a timid voice and a knock on her door. Bill stood in the doorway to her room, looking uncharacteristically nervous.

            “Hey, Bill,” she answered cheerily. “What can I do you for?”

            “There’s something I want to talk to you about—“ he began, but was cut off.

            “Come, sit.” Mabel pulled out the chair from next to her vanity table. “This is going to take a while, and I need to get some practice in.”

            A look of confusion flitted across Bill’s face, but he obediently sat in front of Mabel. “How do you know this is going to take a while?”

            Mabel’s lips quirked into a small, knowing smile. “Let’s just call it intuition.”

            Bill nodded. “So, Shooting Star, he began, “you’ve been human for a while, right?”

            The woman snorted with laughter, her hand slipping from where it had been applying foundation to Bill’s skin. “All my long nineteen years,” she confirmed.

            “So you’ve had a lot of experience with these . . . these _feelings_ things, right?”

            Mabel’s hand stilled. “Of course,” she muttered, mouth quirking up at one side.

            “Well,” Bill fidgeted nervously, “it turns out that these feelings seem to be a bit of a side effect of inhabiting a human body. And I’m having a bit of trouble sorting them out.”

            The woman nodded understandingly. “You and every other human on the planet. Tell me more of these troubles.”

            “Well,” Bill huffed, “without going into any details, I’m experiencing feelings that I haven’t had to deal with for a long, long time. I know anger and greed and those feelings, but there are these new, _nice_ ones that have been infecting me lately that I don’t know what to do with.”

            “Those are called emotions, Bill.”

            “Of course. Right.”

            “I don’t know why you’d want to do anything about having emotions. They’re natural.”

            “Maybe for you meatsacks, but not for me. They’re troublesome and annoying and keep popping up at the wrong times, and . . . Shooting Star, what are you doing?”

            “Shh,” Mabel assured, applying a thin layer of glue to Bill’s eyelid. “Fake eyelashes.” With a satisfactory hum, she leaned back, surveying her work. “Aaand, done!” She exclaimed, spinning Bill around so that he could look at himself in the mirror. “What do you think?”

            Bill studied his reflection studiously. “The wing on my left eye is longer than on the right one,” he finally concluded.

            Mabel spun his chair back around to face her, sticking her face in his as she studied his eyes, face bunched up in concentration. “Hmm,” she muttered unhappily. “Well, you see, Bill,” she said as she continued to work, “there’s really not much that can be done about emotions.”

            “Can’t I just ignore them?”

            Mabel frowned, her hand stilling in its ministrations. “You can. I mean, of course you can. But when you start doing that, they just begin to fester. In the end, there’s not much you can do other than face them head on.”

            Bill made a noncommittal grunt at her unsavory words.

            “What about now?”

            Bill squinted at his made-up reflection, and assured Mabel that his eyeliner was now even.

            “Thank you,” Bill said, sincerely, as he got up to leave.

            “Anytime, demon-o-mine,” Mabel assured, smiling widely.

            “Oh, and Shooting Star.” Mabel looked up to see Bill’s fingers gripping her doorframe, knuckles white and his back turned to her. “If you breathe a word of this to anyone. . . .” he sighed and shook his head, leaving the threat hanging in the air between them.

            Mabel just nodded, frowning at the man’s back as he left her room.


	9. Don't wait up on me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternatively titled: I suck at updating regularly  
> But chapter 9 is here!  
> Title is taken from Don't Wait Up by Robert DeLong

            The three were unsure how to go about investigating what Gideon was doing. A wing of his new mansion was still under construction, so there were too many people around for them to do any proper snooping, and he rarely came into town. They continued with the books that had been studying, looking for a spell, or some sort of cursed object that Gideon could have gotten his hands on.

            As the days trudged on with no luck finding out what exactly Gideon could be up to, Bill looked more and more worn. Dipper had mentioned this to the demon but he never got a straight answer. The demon had been consuming copious amounts of coffee, and on more than one occasion Dipper had to nudge him awake when he fell asleep with his face in a spell book.

            “One of the worst thing about physical bodies,” Bill yawned after Dipper had awoken him from one of his impromptu naps, “is the constant need for sleep.”

            It seemed to Dipper that every night Bill inched a bit closer to him. Then one particular morning, Dipper awoke with Bill’s hands firmly held against his temples, their foreheads pressed together and legs intertwined. Bill wore an intense look of concentration even as his eyes flickered beneath their lids in his sleep. Dipper couldn’t help but think how vulnerable Bill looked while asleep; with his wayward blond hair framing his face and full lips parted slightly, he resembled an angel far more strongly than a demon. Dipper quickly brushed away the thought as he fully awakened. Bill stirred as Dipper pulled away, blearily opening his eyes.

            Backing himself as far into the wall as humanly possible, Dipper hurriedly let out a half-formed apology as he disentwined his legs from the other man’s. Bill was _always_ gone by morning, a fact which allowed the two to avoid awkward situations just like this.

            Bill just chuckled and rolled onto his back, throwing his arm across his face as he took in a deep breath.

            “You scared me there, kid. It took some serious power to beat away those nightmares. They’re getting worse and worse every night.”

            Suddenly Dipper understood; the weary looks, the constant falling asleep—it was all because Bill was worn out from battling Dipper’s nightmares every night.

            “S-sorry,” Dipper stammered out, mind still reeling from waking up so close to the demon. Since when was his wellbeing any concern of Bill’s? And if fighting off the nightmares was taking such a toll on the demon, why wouldn’t he just leave Dipper to suffer on his own? This wasn’t a part of the deal.

            Bill glanced at Dipper, eyes dark with fatigue and uncharacteristically somber. “The forest is scared, and you’re the only lifeline it has right now. That’s why the dreams have been getting worse. The sooner we figure out where the magic’s going, the sooner all of this will be over for you.”

            Dipper closed his eyes and steeled himself for what was to come. “Then it looks like we have a long day of research ahead of us.”

~~

            Try as he might, Dipper wasn’t able to shake the memory of that morning throughout the coming days. It was bad enough that the demon was in such an attractive body, but as he had slowly settled into life with the Pines family, his personality had become tolerable. More than tolerable, actually; though he was loathe to admit it, on more than one occasion Dipper had found himself enjoying the demon’s company when he wasn’t being a snarky asshole.

            Dipper tried to reason himself out of the dangerous train of thought he was often sucked into. Just because he may find Bill’s _body_ attractive was not to say that Dipper actually had to admit to liking the demon. He had read the journals enough times to know that trusting Bill would bring him nothing but trouble.

            Nevertheless, he just couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, Ford had been wrong about Bill.

~~

            “There’s mail for you kids,” Stan said as he came inside one night later in the week. Tours had just finished and Mabel was cooking dinner while Dipper and Bill sat at the kitchen table, bickering about whether or not bananas and peanut butter went together.

            Stan smacked the stack of envelopes down on the table as a way to break up the argument, taking a seat next to Dipper and rubbing his lower back.

            Dipper sorted through the stack until he found the three nearly identical envelopes: one addressed to Mabel, one to himself, and the last, shockingly, to a Bill Smith. There was no return address on the envelopes, and they were handwritten in a looping script. Dipper handed Bill and Mabel theirs and opened his ornate envelope with a feeling of dread; there was no knowing what the piece of paper contained.

            Inside was an invitation, reading:

You are cordially invited

To a formal housewarming party

At the new home of Gideon Gleeful

To be held on July 29

RSVP ASAP

            Dipper looked behind him to Mabel, who was trembling with rage, fingers crumpling the expensive stationary.

            “What’s wrong, Shooting Star?” Bill asked, frowning as he followed Dipper’s gaze.

            “Gideon wants me to be his date to the party,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

            “The bastard,” Dipper spat out in disgust. “I guess he never gave up on you all those years ago.”

            “Are you going to go?” Bill asked, clearly opposed to the idea.

            “Of course she isn’t,” Dipper answered automatically.

            Mabel closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and steeling herself for what she was about to say. “No, I am.”

            Bill and Dipper looked at the woman in surprise.

            “Hear me out. If I can get close to Gideon, get him to trust me, then he may tell me exactly what his plans are and we can figure out a way to stop him.”

            “I don’t like it. I don’t want you anywhere near that creep.” Dipper knew that the plan was a good idea, but the thought of Mabel having to hang on the arm of their once-upon-a-time-nemesis was more than he could handle.

            Mabel just looked at her twin sadly; he could tell that she had already made up her mind.

            “Pine Tree,” Bill interjected. “I understand why you don’t want Shooting Star to do this, but think about it. It’s been weeks, and this is the only stroke of luck that we’ve had. If Shooting Star turns Gideon down then it stands to reason none of us will be welcome at the party, and we’ll be back at square one. But if she agrees to be the little bastard’s date, then hopefully she can get him to tell her more

            Dipper just scowled at the demon. He had hoped that Bill would be on his side in the matter.

            Bill held up his hands in a placating manner. “It just makes the most sense, kid. Besides, you and I will be there the whole night. We won’t let Shooting Star out of our sight. And if Gideon lays so much as a finger on her,” Bill smiled wickedly, eyes flashing golden, “my disguise of normal, sane human might just have to be blown.”

            Dipper just sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Fine. But we’re going to be watching you the entire night. And if he tries _anything_ , we leave.”

            Mabel laughed. “You sound like an overbearing father. I don’t need your permission.” She stuck her tongue out at him as she made her way out of the kitchen.

            Dipper shrugged; she had a point. “Yeah, I know,” he sighed. He tried to take care of his sister, but more often than not she was the one looking out for him. “He’s only doing this so he can try to win over the townspeople again.”

            Bill shook his head slowly. “I think the little bastard has more up his sleeve than that.”

            “Well, we’re gonna find out exactly what.”

            The date of the party was only two weeks away. In two weeks, hopefully the whole mess with the magic would be sorted out, and Bill would leave, and Dipper could finally enjoy the low-key summer he had planned.

            Two weeks. Dipper could make it till then.

~~

            Though he had finally managed to adopt a somewhat normal sleeping schedule as he got older, the stress of trying to figure out how he could save Gravity Falls had reawakened his insomniac ways. Whereas Bill struggled to stay awake most of the time, Dipper had to be convinced to go to sleep.

            On one such night, Bill quietly walked into the living room where Dipper was reading. The demon was already dressed in pajamas, purple bruises under his eyes evidence of how exhausted he was.

            “Aren’t you going to bed, Pine Tree?” Bill asked with a yawn.

            “Yeah, I’ll be up in a few, Bill,” Dipper mumbled without paying attention. He wondered idly if his roommate had been waiting up for him.

            “It’s one in the morning,” Bill sighed tiredly. “Shooting Star and the old man have been asleep for hours.”

            “Whoa, really?” Dipper blinked as if in a haze; the hours had slipped by without him noticing.

            “C’mon,” Bill said,

            Dipper climbed into his bed a few minutes later after brushing his teeth and changing into pajamas. He brought the book he had been reading with him, and when he was fairly certain that Bill had fallen asleep, he turn on a book light and continued reading where he had left off.

            Not even a full minute later, Bill snatched the book out of Dipper’s hands, stashing it under his pillow and laying his head back down on it.

            “Go to sleep, Pine Tree,” Bill murmured, already drifting off.

            Dipper huffed in disdain.

            Half an hour passed, and then another, but Dipper’s mind was still racing, and try as he might, he was unable to put it to rest and just fall asleep. He thought about trying to retrieve the book he had been reading from under Bill’s pillow but wasn’t willing to risk waking the demon.

            “Pine Tree?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Why aren’t you asleep yet?” The demon’s voice was softer that Dipper was used to hearing it. In the calm night air of the bedroom he spoke in a rounded tone, words more pliable and gentle without the sharp-edged inflections they carried in the waking world.

            “I can’t fall asleep.”

            “I can put you to sleep. You know that.”

            Dipper made a quiet sound of frustration in the back of his throat. “But if I don’t go to sleep you can finally get some rest without having to fight off my nightmares,” he finally admitted softly, his voice little more than a breath in the still darkness of the attic room. It scared Dipper that Bill would do this for him, that the demon was sacrificing his own health and comfort for Dipper’s.

            Bill seemed to contemplate this for a minute. “Since when do you care enough about me to worry about whether or not I get enough rest?”

            “Since when do you care enough about me to sacrifice your own well-being in order to get rid of my nightmares?” Dipper countered, anxiety betrayed in the way his voice broke over the words.

            Bill just hummed, propping himself up on one arm as he regarded Dipper blearily. “It’s too late to have this argument. Go to sleep, Pine Tree.”

            Dipper’s quiet protests were cut short as Bill placed his warm palms over the man’s temples. But just before he finally drifted off, Dipper could have sworn that he felt fingers run tentatively, tenderly through his hair.


	10. Good and lost beyond these hopeless days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Filler chapter! We're officially halfway through, folks!  
> Unfortunately, a lot happens in the next chapter and I'm not as far along with it as I had hoped I would be by now so it may be a bit before it's out, but bear with me!  
> Title is from Take Me Somewhere Nice by Sky Sailing  
> As always, thanks for reading!

            “You’re kidding me!”

            “Why would I be?”

            Dipper and Bill were in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner only a couple of days after Gideon’s invitations had arrived when Dipper had been reminiscing about the summer when he had first stayed in Gravity Falls. He had taken to telling Bill stories about his childhood summers in the town, and had just been relaying the story of when he and Mabel had discovered Fiddelford McGucket in the lake monster machine when he made a shocking discovery

            “You’re telling me that a thousand year old demon has never gone fishing before?”

            “When would I ever have the need to go fishing? And I’m older than that, kid.”

            “Okay, it’s decided,” Dipper announced, “we’re going on a fishing trip tomorrow.”

~~

            The next day found the pair getting ready to go on the adventure despite a very reluctant Bill. Stan had agreed to let the two leave work after lunch on the grounds that they would each take on an extra tour the next day.

            “Pine Tree,” Bill whined, “don’t we have more important things to do than go on fishing trips?”

            “There’s really not much else we can do,” Dipper answered, “at least until after we find out more about what Gideon has planned. Besides, we’re going to have a much better chance of stopping him when you have all of your power back. And you might as well get the whole human experience while you’re stuck in this body.”

            Bill reluctantly agreed, and the two set out on their trip, Mabel waving goodbye to them as they left. Dipper had asked her if she wanted to come along, but his twin had quickly declined, claiming that she had “things” to do around the Shack.

            It was a hot, sunny day in Gravity Falls, and the beach was crowded when the two arrived. Dipper had little trouble finding Stan’s boat at the docks; the stingy old man had finally been forced to buy a new one, named “Stan’o’War III,” when his old decrepit boat sunk during a fishing trip.

            Bill wrinkled his nose at the small boat. “Do you even know how to drive that thing?”

            Dipper laughed; he couldn’t say that he hadn’t expected the response. “Relax, Bill. It’s just a boat, it’s really easy to steer.”

            Bill watched Dipper carefully climb into the small boat, then clambered in himself.

            Dipper tugged on the cord and the boat’s engine sputtered to life. He steered the boat to the far area of the lake, far out of the reach of any swimmers. He didn’t want to have to worry about Bill accidentally hooking an errant local.

            Dipper remembered the first time Stan had taken him fishing as he drove the small boat to the far end of the lake. The old man had been aghast that his nephew had never taught the boy something he viewed as so crucial to childhood, and had valiantly vowed to teach Dipper himself.

            It had been an awful day; the mosquitoes were out in droves, the sun was relentless, and Stan was frustrated and impatient with Dipper, who had difficulty learning how to cast and felt guilty threading the worms onto the hook. Over the years, however, it had transformed into a good memory in Dipper’s mind, as has many previously horrid memories of his first summer in Gravity Falls. In many ways, Stan had become more of a father to Dipper during that summer than his own father had ever been.            

            Once they were a sufficient distant from the beach Dipper cut the engine and pulled out the fishing poles and tackle box. 

            “Okay,” he said, “so we usually use live bait, which tends to work a little better, but since Mabel isn’t here we’re going to use lures instead.”

            “What does Shooting Star have to do with it?”

            “Well I kinda get . . . grossed out putting the worms on the hook myself. So Mabel always has to do it for me.” Dipper looked down sheepishly as Bill laughed at him.

            “Why does that not surprise me,” Bill murmured, ruffling Dipper’s hair affectionately. Dipper laughed away the awkwardness; things like that had been happening more and more often lately, the demon using any excuse to touch Dipper. Dipper just chalked it up to Bill not completely understanding human boundaries.

            Dipper handed Bill the pole once he had secured the lure on, showing the demon how to cast, then throwing his own line in. It was only a few minutes later when Dipper reeled in his first fish. Bill watched in rapt fascination as Dipper reeled the bass in, leaning so far over the edge that Dipper was afraid he would capsize them both.

            “So now what do you do with it once you catch it?”

            Dipper shrugged as he held the bass by its lower lip, expertly removing the hook from its mouth. “A lot of people eat them, but I’ve never been able to watch something die like that and then eat it. I dunno. Besides, I’m pretty wary about eating any of the wildlife from Gravity Falls. I’m pretty sure that I heard a fish here talk to me once.”

            A while passed as the two sat in silence, distant noises from the beachgoers just reaching them. It was a nice day out, sunny but not too hot, and Dipper was happy to get away from the Shack for a day.

            “Oh, come on already!” Bill exclaimed as Dipper reeled in yet another fish. Dipper laughed as he deftly removed the hook from the fish’s mouth, setting the creature back in the water to swim away.

            “You just have to be more patient,” Dipper responded, washing his hands off in the lake. “You’re reeling the line in too fast. You have to let the lure sink to the bottom and slowly bounce it up and down so the fish think that it’s alive.”

            Grumbling, Bill did as Dipper told him, and within a few minutes he let out a surprised shout. “Pine Tree! I feel it! I caught one!” He jerked the line back, hurriedly reeling it in. But only an empty fishing line returned to the boat.

            “What happened?!” Bill exclaimed in anger.

            Dipper laughed. “You pulled back too quickly. You have to let the fish play with the lure a bit first, then set the hook.”

            Bill rubbed the back of his neck, looking frustrating. “This isn’t as easy as it looks,” he ground out, but cast his line back out obediently, forcing himself to reel it in slower.

            A few minutes later Dipper saw the tip of Bill’s fishing rod bend with the tug of a fish. The demon’s face bunched up in concentration as he waited a few moments before tugging the rod back and starting to reel in the fish. By the time the fish reached the boat, Bill was nearly glowing with pride.

            “Pine Tree! I did it! Look!” Bill picked up the line close to the fish’s mouth, holding it so the animal was suspended over the boat.

            The fish had three eyes, the middle one dangling on a long stalk stemming from its forehead, and small webbed hands that frantically clutched the air as it let out a shrill shriek.

            “Good . . . job,” Dipper said slowly, eyeing the creature fearfully. He removed the hook as quickly as possible, trying not to touch the fish. It dropped into the water with a splash. Dipper laughed as they watched the creature hastily swim away. “Seeing something like that shouldn’t surprise me anymore.”

            Bill stared at Dipper, an emotion that he couldn’t quite place ghosting over the demon’s face before disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.

            “What’s up?” Dipper asked casually, unused to such expressions from Bill.

            “Nothing,” Bill said quickly, casting his line into the water with a bit more force than was necessary.

            A few minutes passed in silence before Bill finally spoke up again. “Pine Tree,” he said quietly, “where were you the past three years?”

            Dipper blinked in surprise, opening his mouth and then closing it as if in imitation of the fish they were seeking. He hadn’t thought that Bill had even noticed his absence. “I mean, we were just at home,” he finally said dumbly.

            “But why didn’t you come here for the summer like you always do?” Bill persisted.

            “Well,” Dipper began, rubbing the coarse stubble on his jaw. “Mabel and I had more to do during the summers these past few years. Now that we’re both in college we had to get full-time summer jobs to help pay for it. We work for Stan while we’re here, but he doesn’t pay us much at all.”

            “So what made you decide to come back this summer?”

            “Bill,” Dipper said, a realization dawning on him. “Did you miss us?”

            “Of course not,” Bill snapped. “I was just bored. You’re fun to torment.”

            “Of course,” Dipper muttered under his breath, a small smile forming on his face.

            The rest of the day passed quickly, and Bill seemed to enjoy himself more that he had anticipated. Dipper still caught the most fish out of the pair, but once Bill had caught on, he reeled in quite a few as well. The beachgoers slowly left as evening fell, the setting sun painting the placid water in shades of pink and orange.

            “Stan always told me that the fishing’s better in the evening. Something about the fish coming out to feed when the bugs come out.”

            Bill nodded. “Your uncle is an odd man. A smart man, but certainly an odd one.”

            Dipper laughed, unable to dispute Bill’s words. “He certainly doesn’t like you much.”

            Bill grinned wickedly. “Well, we do have quite a bit of history.”

            Dipper’s smile disappeared at the demon’s words. He had never been able to get the Stans to tell him how exactly they had been involved with Bill Cipher in their youth.

            Before long the two were the last ones left.

            “Pine Tree?”

            “Hmm?”

            “How long do you usually stay out fishing for?”

            “Oh,” Dipper said as he turned his head up to look at the sky. The stars were already out in full force and the sun’s light was all but gone. The fireflies were out, flickering as they danced amidst the trees at the edge of the forest.

            “I mean, I don’t mind staying longer,” Bill said softly, “but Shooting Star is probably wondering where we are.”

            Dipper nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, we better head back.” The engine hummed to life as Dipper steered them back toward the docks, the wake left by the boat the only thing disrupting the reflection of the night sky on the placid water.

            They drove back to the Shack in companionable silence. Being alone with the demon was becoming easier and easier, and Dipper felt more comfortable with him than with most of the people he knew. That fact should have scared him more than it did, he knew, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the Bill wasn’t as, well, evil as Dipper had originally believed. Or maybe he was just learning that good and evil weren’t clear-cut concepts like he had once believed.

            “We were about to send a search party out,” Mabel joked when they walked through the door of the Mystery Shack, a knowing glint in her eye. Dipper just laughed embarrassedly and avoided her gaze.

            The two heated up some leftovers for dinner and Bill went upstairs to shower. Dipper stayed in the kitchen to chat with Mabel about how the day at the Mystery Shack had gone.

            “Hey, bro-bro?” Mabel asked suddenly, voice slightly hesitant.

            “Yeah?”

            “Did you have fun today?”

            “Yeah,” he responded with a huff of laughter. “I did, actually.”

            Mabel just smiled knowingly. “Good.” She stood up, ruffling Dipper’s hair. “Well, I’m gonna head upstairs. See you tomorrow.”

            “’Night,” Dipper called, staring at his twin confusedly as she walked away. Why was she acting like she knew something that he didn’t?

            Dipper took his place in bed later that night, and as he did every night, Bill came in soon after, laying his hand over Dipper’s and turning his back to him as they both settled down to sleep. Tonight, however, Dipper could feel that something was slightly different. Maybe it was the way that Bill was lying slightly on his back, not quite turned away from the human. Or maybe it was the way that whatever tension usually rested in the air between the two seemed gone, or at least lessened.

            Either way, it filled Dipper’s stomach with a strange warmth.

            Just as he was drifting off to sleep, Dipper heard a soft noise come from the demon next to him.

            “Pine Tree?” Bill muttered.

            “Hmm?” Dipper answered sleepily.

            “Today was fun,” Bill said quietly, gripping the man’s hand just a bit tighter. “Thank you.”

            Dipper just hummed in response, already half asleep. It didn’t strike him till the next morning how oddly genuine Bill had sounded.


	11. Do the twist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a longer chapter, but a whole lot happens!  
> The title is taken from The Denial Twist by The White Stripes.
> 
> I just want to say thank you so much to everyone who comments, you're the reasons I keep posting this story. I know I don't answer the comments because I suck and I'm super busy with classes, but I read and appreciate each and every one of them!

            The days passed more quickly now that they weren’t spending every spare hour with their noses in dusty old books, and the day of Gideon’s party arrived in no time. It was a beautiful summer evening that certainly didn’t match the mood the three were in.

            Gideon had responded with glee upon hearing Mabel’s acceptance and, much to her disgust, had even bought a dress for her to wear to the occasion. A seamstress had arrived with the dress a week or so before the event to tailor the pink frock to fit Mabel perfectly.

            Dipper and Bill had been forced to buy clothes for the occasion; Dipper wasn’t looking forward to having to dress up, but Bill was unusually chipper about it.

            When he was questioned about it, Bill just flashed a smile at Dipper. “Liar, monster, snappy dresser; c’mon kid it’s my motto!”

            Though he too had received an invitation, Stan had refused to attend the party on the grounds that even having to look at Gideon made him sick. No one could really refute that.

            Stan let the three off of work early the day of the party so they could get ready. The whole thing was reminiscent of Dipper’s senior prom, which was a memory that he didn’t want to relive.

            Dipper waited downstairs once he was showered and dressed; as expected, it had taken him far less time to get ready than it was taking Mabel. Surprisingly, Bill was also taking a while to get ready.

            After a few minute, Dipper heard the unmistakable footfalls of his sister prancing down the stairs. Mabel was trying to be as upbeat and cheerful about the event as possible, but Dipper could tell that she wasn’t looking forward to it.

Mabel twirled in her gown once she had reached the living room. “Do you like it?” she asked eagerly. Despite herself, she seemed to approve of Gideon’s taste in clothing.

            A smile lit up Dipper’s face. “You look beautiful, sis,” he said.

            Mabel beamed at him. “You don’t look half bad yourself,” she answered, straightening his tie and valiantly trying to smooth down his hair before giving up.

            Dipper was wearing a simple black suit with a blue bow tie reminiscent of the color of the hat he had always worn as a kid. Mabel had insisted that he shave for the event, but he had won the battle of not using any of the products she threatened him with in his hair.

            “Are we ready to go?” Dipper heard a voice say. He and Mabel turned to watch as Bill made his way down the stairs. He was dressed in a black suit and gold vest with a black bow tie. His hair was styled expertly and as he came closer Dipper noticed that he smelled of a unique aftershave. Dipper couldn’t quite place the smell; it reminded him of summer days spent deep in the forest and a hint of the sharp, spicy smell that he had come to associate with Bill.

            Dipper’s mouth nearly hit the floor and he struggled to tear his eyes away from Bill. If he had thought that Bill had been attractive before, that was nothing compared to how he thought the demon looked now.

            Mabel wolf whistled at the demon as he shot her a smile.

            “Looking good, Shooting Star. Shame it’s gotta be wasted on such a horror of a human, though.”

            Mabel gave an appreciative laugh in response. “Thanks, Bill. You certainly clean up well.”

            “Alright, let’s get going,” Dipper said, grabbing his car keys and shaking his head as if to dismiss the image of Bill. This was going to be a long night.

~~

            As they pulled up the long driveway to Gideon’s new mansion, Dipper couldn’t help himself from gawking in awe. _Mansion_ was certainly the only word that could be used to describe the building sprawling across the grounds; it was something straight out of a story book.   Mabel was immediately whisked away when the three arrived at the entranceway of the manor, other guests trickling in around them. Dipper recognized many citizens of Gravity Falls, looking much nicer in elegant dresses and suits than they usually did. More unusual, however, were the number of people who were quite clearly not from the area. These well-dressed men and women filed in, some barely containing sneers directed at the villagers.

            Dipper couldn’t help but think that they looked like business investors, rich entrepreneurs who Gideon no doubt hoped to gain financial support from. But for what?

            Bill and Dipper made their way down the foyer, following the butlers that ushered the guests in front of them along. The hallway opened up into a vast room that could only be described one way.

            “He actually has a _ballroom_ ,” Dipper said, aghast, as he took in the room around him. “Who has a ballroom?!”

            Bill shrugged, looking unimpressed as he glanced around.

            “So what exactly are you and I supposed to be doing tonight?” Bill asked once the two had settled themselves in the dark fringes of the spacious room.

            Dipper shrugged. “Keep an eye on Mabel. Enjoy the party, I guess. It’s really up to Mabel to find out what Gideon is up to now, we don’t have much of a role tonight other than making sure that he doesn’t try anything with her.”

            Bill nodded. “I think Shooting Star is perfectly capable of taking care of herself if he does, though.”

            “Oh, absolutely,” Dipper laughed, “Mabel can be much more intimidating than I could ever hope to be.”

~~

            The beginning of the party passed uneventfully for both Dipper and Bill; the two chatted idly among themselves while keeping careful watch over Mabel. Gideon, it seemed, was determined to be the perfect host. Mabel kept close to his side as he talked with the well-dressed outsiders

As Dipper stood in the shadows with Bill, silently perusing the goings-on, a sudden flash of fiery red hair caught his attention.

“Wendy! What are you doing here?!”

            “Dipper!” The redhead’s face lit up as soon as she saw him, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug as soon as she reached him. “Dude, it’s been forever! I just got home last night and my brothers told me about this party, I couldn’t miss it! I can’t believe that Gideon would do something like this for the town.”

            It felt good to see his childhood crush again. Dipper had given up on his childish pining for the redhead soon after arriving in Gravity Falls, but the two had become fast friends.             

            “How’s grad school going?” Dipper asked eagerly. “I had no idea that you were visiting.”

            “It was totally last minute! I have the weekend off and decided to surprise my dad. I was gonna drop by to the Mystery Shack tomorrow.”

            Wendy and Dipper talked for a while until, during a lull in conversation, Bill cleared his throat impatiently.

            “Oh!” Dipper started. “I totally forgot. Wendy, this is Bill. He’s living with us, Stan hired him for the summer.”

            “How do you like working in the Shack?” Wendy asked conversationally.

            “Oh, he really doesn’t do much work,” Dipper interjected flippantly. “He mostly just eats us out of house and home and annoys us all day long. We keep him around just for the entertainment.” The fondness in his tone didn’t go unnoticed by Wendy.

            She laughed, knowing that Dipper was joking, but Bill just smiled as though stunned. “I have to just step out for a moment. Red, it’s been a pleasure. Pine Tree.” And with that Bill stalked away from the two, his posture rigid and Dipper staring at his back quizzically.

Dipper talked with Wendy for a while longer, the two of them just catching up, but eventually grew more and more anxious about where Bill had gone. Eventually, he made an excuse and hurried off to find the demon.

~~

            “Bill, what’s wrong?” Dipper asked worriedly, following the demon through the labyrinthine hallway he had found him prowling in. Bill stopped suddenly, fists clenched at his sides and breathing deeply as though trying to calm himself down.

            Dipper reached out a hand, but Bill flipped on him instantly, approaching him with a predatory glare.

            Bill backed Dipper against the wall, golden eyes burning with fury. His arms formed a cage around the human, fingers splayed against the wall, and Dipper’s head smacked painfully against the plaster as he shrunk away from the taller man.

            “Don’t you _ever_ think that I am _insignificant._ I am thousands of times stronger than you even in this form, kid,” the demon hissed, face threateningly close to Dipper’s. “Don’t talk _down_ to me.”

            Dipper swallowed but met Bill’s heated gaze head on, unwilling to back down. The enraged demon curled his lip, but let his arms drop to his sides as he backed away from Dipper. The human didn’t move, and after a few moments Bill stalked off, muttering under his breath.

            Dipper let out the breath that he had unconsciously been holding, moving away from the wall. He had never seen the demon so angry with him before and was unable to recall doing anything that would have potentially pissed him off.

            Dipper was unsure what to do with himself now that Bill was gone; most of the partygoers were chatting amongst themselves or dancing, something that Dipper loathed with a burning passion. Dipper had never been one for social gatherings; Mabel had always been the more social of the twins while he had become a bit of a wallflower.

            It pained Dipper to see his sister draped over the arm of the man they both loathed. Gideon was talking with a group of wealthy looking men, and every few minutes he would motion to Mabel or lean over to whisper something in her ear. As her twin, Dipper could read Mabel’s body language from where she could, and everything about it screamed ‘uncomfortable’.

            Dipper was unsure how long he had been brooding for when he heard someone talking to him.

            “Hey, kid,” he heard a voice say. Turning, Dipper saw the bartender sliding a shot glass towards him across the lacquered surface of the bar. “You look like you could use it,” the man said with a wink.

            “Uh, thanks,” Dipper said uneasily, taking the shot glass out of obligation. Dipper had limited experiences with alcohol, all of which had ended with his praying to the porcelain god with regret burning a pit in his stomach.

            But tonight . . . well, tonight was a special occasion. And he was miserable. And Mabel could always drive home. He glanced at the glass in his hand . . . just one couldn’t hurt.

 _What the hell,_ Dipper thought as he downed the shot of vodka, suppressing a grimace as it burned its way down his throat. He placed the empty shot glass on the bar as the warmth of the drink hit his stomach. After a few moments, he began to feel much lighter, a looseness settling over him.

            The bartender locked eyes with Dipper, smiling kindly before sliding over another shot glass. Dipper took this one without hesitation, quickly gulping down the shot. It burned less going down the second time.

~~

            The evening passed in a blur of blinding colors for Dipper. He couldn’t remember what exactly he had against drinking; he felt great!

            At some point during the evening, Gideon stood at the front of the room and made an incredibly drawn-out speech about how happy he was to have everyone there to support him. Dipper offhandedly thought that the majority of the people were just there for the free food.

            It seemed that Gideon had no immediate ulterior motive other than lulling the townsfolk into a false sense of security. He may have let that thought slip to an innocent townsperson, who gave him a dubious look before inching away from him.

            Dipper wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he finally saw Bill again, looking much calmer than he had earlier.

            Dipper sauntered up to Bill confidently, recalling something one of his college friends had told him about alcohol removing inhibitions.

            “Pine Tree?” Bill said questioningly, his voice lilting with laughter. “I’ve been looking for you. Mabel told me that someone told her you had an entire conversation with them about the different species of faeries that live in the forest . . . how much did you have to drink?” The demon’s honey-colored eyes were warm as they appraised the human, edges crinkled with unuttered laughter.

            “A lot,” Dipper slurred, grinning and swaying a bit closer to the demon. “I lost count.”

            Bill snatched the glass out of Dipper’s hand, placing it safely on the bar next to them. “I think you’ve had enough for tonight.”

            “Let me tell _you_ something,” Dipper drawled, advancing on Bill. Bill backed away so the two were in a corner near the bar, an amused look on his face as he surveyed the drunken man.

            “You think you’re oh-so-scary when you go all demon-y on me,” Dipper said, lightly shoving Bill on the chest, “but the only thing that’s scary is how good you look in that suit.”

            Bill looked confused as he let out a small breath of laughter at the corny line, watching Dipper warily, as if trying to calculate exactly what the human’s next move would be. “Thank you, I think?” he said, eyes narrowed as he appraised his swaying roommate.

            Dipper locked eyes with Bill then, but he had the feeling that the demon’s eyes would be unreadable even if the room would stop spinning long enough for him to study them.

            Dipper stepped forward to close the space between them, letting out a satisfied hum as he crushed their lips together, pressing Bill against the decorated wall of the mansion. A shock shot through Dipper from their point of contact, warming him to his toes in a way that the vodka hadn’t been able to.

Dipper thought that he would never remove his lips from Bill’s if he could help it, but his pesky need for air quickly crushed that hope. He pulled away from Bill, not daring to look the demon in the eyes, pausing only to raggedly suck air in before diving back in for another kiss, sucking Bill’s bottom lip between his own and gently biting at it. Bill stilled beneath the touches, neither returning the advances nor pushing the boy away.

            Bill didn’t respond as Dipper’s lips hungrily nipped at the delicate flesh of his throat, caressing the demon’s flushed skin and racing pulse. It was only when Dipper’s hands started to roam, flitting against the demon’s sides to grip at his hips that Bill reached out, holding Dipper’s wrists in a vice-like grip so that he was no longer able to touch the other man.

            “You don’t want this, kid,” Bill said in a hoarse voice, words clipped and gaze stonily locked anywhere but on Dipper.

            “I don’t think you get to tell me what I do and don’t want,” Dipper slurred, going in for another kiss, but Bill’s hands were firm as they pushed him away.

            “I think we’re done here for tonight,” Bill said as he turned on his heel and stalked away, tugging Dipper along behind him. The boy stumbled, knocking into Bill as the demon effortlessly slung Dipper’s arm over his shoulders, supporting the drunken Dipper as they made their way out of the party.

            Night had settled outside as the party raged on, and the cool humid air that settled on Dipper’s flushed skin made him shiver.

            Bill opened the door to the car, unceremoniously throwing Dipper into the back seat. “Stay here until I get back with your sister,” he said calmly, slamming the door on Dipper’s protests.

            Bill stalked back into the party resentfully, wrestling with the wretched feelings that had plagued him ever since he made the goddamn meatsack for himself.

Bill was fuming, but oddly enough, he wasn’t angry with Pine Tree . . . no, he was angry with . . . himself? How could that be? Something wasn’t right with him anymore.

            It was just because he had been living with these fucking _humans_ for too long; that must be what was wrong with him.

            He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t _stand_ the redheaded girl Dipper had been talking with. It was a sort of petulant hatred, and Bill was completely unsure where it had come from. Aside from taking up Dipper’s attention, she had done nothing for Bill to form any sort of opinion on her.

            It was easy for Bill to locate Mabel; the partygoers seemed to center around Gideon, and she was still by his side as she had been all night. Bill did not envy her.

            What was that feeling, sympathy? Bill sneered to himself; since when did he feel sympathy for humans?

            “Ah, Bill Smith, isn’t it? Pleased to see ya again,” Gideon greeted as the demon approached them. Bill didn’t bother to answer; he was in no mood for petty human formalities.

            “Shooting Star,” he addressed Mabel, “we have to go.” The look in his eyes told Mabel all that she needed to know; she had been nervously watching her twin as he became more and more inebriated as the evening wore on.

            “Leaving so soon?” Gideon asked

            “Sorry, Gideon,” Bill said with a barely contained sneer, “but Mabel has to go home. Family emergency.” Mabel flashed Gideon a faux apologetic smile as she was whisked away by Bill.

            “Family emergency?” she asked dubiously once they were outside.

            Bill just snorted in response. “Your asshole of a brother is drunk out of his mind. We should get him home before he makes a complete idiot out of himself.”

            Mabel frowned; Bill was trying to appear lighthearted about the situation, but she could tell that something about the night had bothered him deeply.

            By the time Bill returned with Mabel, Dipper was out cold in the backseat.

            Mabel climbed into the driver’s seat, taking off her high heels to drive home. She glanced at Bill, but he was stoically looking out the window. Mabel wanted to mention something about what she had witnessed between the two that evening, but the steely glint in Bill’s eyes told her that she had better leave well enough alone. She glanced in the rearview mirror at her brother sadly, knowing that he would wake up the next morning aching of regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill is jealous of Wendy; I'm not sure if I made that clear in the story. Thanks for reading!


	12. I need a getaway car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is Hate, Rain on Me by Andrew Jackson Jihad

            Dipper awoke the morning after the party with a pounding headache, his mouth tasting as if it was full of cotton and the faint light shining in through the curtains blinding him. He glanced down, unsure why his suit lay crumpled on the floor next to his bed, when the events of the previous night started to piece themselves together.

            Letting out a mortified groan, Dipper buried his flaming face in his pillow. What had he been thinking?! Clearly, he hadn’t been. And how much had he had to drink, anyway? He tried to think past the moment when he had tried to kiss Bill but couldn’t remember much past that; evidently he had blacked out. There was a reason he didn’t drink much.

            With a stifled noise of protest, Dipper scrambled out of bed and into the bathroom, where he unceremoniously emptied the contents of his stomach. As soon as his head stopped spinning, he stripped off his boxers and climbed into the shower, the warm water doing little to soothe him. He felt vaguely like death, but supposed he deserved it after his antics the night before.

            Dipper crept down the stairs after his shower, peering into the kitchen unseen. To his relief, Mabel was the only one inside, and she turned around to face him as he slunk in.

            Mabel regarded Dipper with barely checked laughter. “How’re you feeling, bro-bro?”

            Dipper glared at his twin in response, pouring himself a cup of water as he waited for the coffee to brew, taking tentative sips to ensure that he wouldn’t just throw it back up.

            “It looked like you and Bill got pretty friendly last night,” Mabel said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

            Dipper flushed crimson at her words; he hadn’t thought that she noticed. In fact, he hadn’t taken into account the fact that any of the partygoers could have noticed his rejected advances on his great uncle’s “employee”. Fuck, why had he made such a fool out of himself?!

            “I’m such an idiot,” he groaned as he took a seat at the table, burying his face in his arms and wishing he could just shut out the world around him.

            Mabel laughed, running her fingers through Dipper’s wet curls affectionately. “Bill didn’t look as angry as I thought he might,” she admitted with a soft smile. “Flustered and a bit annoyed, yeah, but not angry.”

            “I don’t even like him in that way!” Dipper’s voice cracked over the words in a way it hadn’t since he’d gone through puberty.

            Mabel raised an eyebrow skeptically. If there was one thing in the world that she knew how to do, it was how to read her twin brother. “Are you sure about that, bro-bro? Because I’m relatively certain that you’ve been head over heels for him all summer.”

            “Mabel, he’s a demon!”

            The woman shrugged. “So? Love is love. And I’ve seen you in love enough times to know how you act when you are. And let me tell you, you have it _bad_.”

            Dipper didn’t bother to respond; he could deny it until he was blue in the face, but Mabel wouldn’t believe him. Not to mention that there may have been a ghost of truth in her words.

            “And besides, as the quick-tempered asshole that he is, if he wasn’t angry about what you did last night, then don’t you think he might just be a little interested as well?”

            “He should be angry with me,” Dipper said, words teeming with self-loathing. “Hell, even I’m angry with me. And with Bill’s temper it’s a wonder that my head isn’t mounted on a spike outside the Shack as a warning to those who presume to be too intimate with demons.”

            Mabel snorted. “You’re so dramatic.

            “How much did you drink last night anyway? I barely thought that you knew what alcohol is.”

            Dipper groaned. “More than I ever have before, I think. Apparently vodka doesn’t agree with me so well.”

            Mabel curled up her lip in distaste as she took in her brother’s disheveled appearance. “Yeah, you look pretty awful.”

            “Thanks,” Dipper responded drily.

            “I have just the thing for a hangover this bad!” Mabel exclaimed suddenly, rummaging through the fridge until she found what she was looking for, proudly holding up the container in triumph. In it swirled a pink liquid, sparkling with bits of glitter and . . . was that a plastic dinosaur?

            Dipper’s face paled as he looked at his twin in unmitigated horror. “Not Mabel juice.”

            “Yup! Mabel juice! Nothing else can cure a hangover as well.” She poured Dipper a glass, placing it in front of her horrified twin expectantly. “Bottoms up, bro-bro.”

            Glancing up at his sister’s puppy dog eyes, Dipper felt he had no choice but to obey. Grimacing, he chugged the vile concoction.

            “Where is Bill, anyway?” he asked once he had finished, audaciously trying to suppress his gag reflex.

            Mabel shrugged. “He left a few hours ago. He said he had things to do.”

            “He’s a demon from a different dimension. What ‘things’ could he possibly have to do?”

            His twin just looked away and shrugged in response; they knew that they were both thinking that same thing: Bill just hadn’t wanted to be there when Dipper woke up.

~~

            Bill returned a few hours later, looking worn. Stan had given the three the day off after the long party the night before, and Dipper and Mabel were curled up on the couch watching terrible daytime television.

            Bill looked uncharacteristically somber, Dipper thought, but the demon mentioned nothing of the night before as he took a seat on the armrest by Mabel. Odd; Dipper had thought that he would at least be mercilessly teased for his drunken antics, if not outright yelled at. But the demon seem subdued, almost melancholy.

            “So,” Mabel began, tentatively breaking the uncomfortable silence and glancing apprehensively between the two men. “Where do we go from here?”

            “What did Gideon tell you last night?” Bill asked in a disinterested tone.  

            “Not much,” Mabel admitted with a grimace. “He was really vague about everything, but he’s definitely up to something. Apparently he’s come up with some sort of new invention. I even tried to talk to some of the investors who were there, but none of them knew much about it either, just that Gideon had promised them all that it would be ‘life changing’. They said something that was odd, though; it didn’t seem like Gideon was very interested in their money. He more so wanted their support and their promise that they would help spread the word about his invention once it’s in effect.”

            “Why would he want that?” Dipper wondered aloud. “What is he _planning_?” The three looked at each other agitatedly; they had all hoped that by now this whole mess would have been over. But they were still barely any closer to solving the problem at hand. Not to mention that Dipper and Mabel both had to return to college in less than a month. If they weren’t able to fix Gravity Falls by then, what would happen? Bill would be trapped in the Mindscape again once their deal was over, and wouldn’t be much help there. Dipper’s head pounded; this was too much, especially after the night he had had.

            They spent the rest of the day halfheartedly poring over any book they could find relating to a potentially magical invention, but were unsuccessful in their efforts. Dipper even pulled out the journals, studying the pages on the portal, but as far as he could tell, Gideon would need all three journal to build and operate the portal, and at the moment he didn’t have any of them.

            They were all in bad moods; they had slacked off investigating because they thought they would find out all they needed to at the party, but now the party had passed and still they were no closer to stopping Gideon.

            Dipper fell asleep early that night, unsure where he and Bill stood regarding their sleeping arrangements and unwilling to go through some awkward moment trying to figure it out. But when he woke up screaming a few hours later, night terrors back in full force, Bill reluctantly pushed open the door to the room, still fully clothed and looking very tired. Neither of them said a word as Bill laid down in his own bed, linking their hands as lightly as possible.

            _I guess that’s settled, then,_ Dipper thought as he drifted back off to a dreamless sleep.

~~

            Dipper had a hard time focusing the next day; he kept reading the same line over and over, not taking anything in. He was unable to get the events from the party out of his head, and was stressing about saving Gravity Falls before they had to leave for the summer.

            “Come on, bro bro, talk to me,” Mabel said, closing the book that Dipper had been reading. “I met someone who I think you might be interested in meeting.”

            “What do you mean?” Dipper asked, brows furrowing in perplexity.

            “Well, I was in town the other day and I met this really nice old woman who’s lived in a lot of magical places like Gravity Falls. It turns out that she’s spent her entire life studying the paranormal. And she tends to specialize in demons.”

            “And?” Dipper asked, stomach in knots as he tried to figure out where Mabel was going with this.

            “I figured that you probably have a lot to talk about with her. She knows a lot, and after spending all this time with Bill, you must have a lot of questions. It’s gotta be hard,” Mabel said, a knowing twinkle in her eye, “being in love with a demon.”

            “I—I was drunk the other night! I didn’t know what I was doing!” Dipper tried to protest, but Mabel just gave him a knowing smile.

            He swallowed; was he really so transparent? Mabel had always been able to read him like an open book, he just hoped that it wasn’t so obvious to everyone else. Especially not to Bill.

            “I’m such an idiot,” Dipper groaned

            “It’s not your fault,” Mabel said. “And for the record, I think you two would totally make a cute couple.”

            “You’re not helping,” he grumbled, words muffled by his hands.

            Mabel ruffled his hair affectionately as she stood up to leave. “Her name is Melinda, and she’s expecting you to be there tomorrow.”


	13. Afraid for your soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit different but I hope you all like it.  
> Title is from Eat You Alive by The Oh Hello's.

            Dipper had valiantly tried to worm his way out of meeting the woman, but Mabel would not take no for an answer, handing him directions and practically pushing him out the door.

            The house was on the outskirts of the town, set farther into the forest than even the Mystery Shack. Dipper had to abandon his car halfway down the winding driveway; numerous trees in various stages of decay had fallen and were blocking the way in. As he stepped over the obstacle course, Dipper idly wondered how the woman got to town if she didn’t drive.

            An overgrown cobblestone path let to a quaint cottage that looked as if it had come straight out of a fairytale. Vines had grown all over the little house and the roof was covered in a soft green moss. There was a small garden to the left of the entranceway where numerous flowering plants that Dipper had never seen before grew. The scientist in him itched to take a closer look and sketch them in his journal for later research, but he had come to the house with a specific purpose in mind and didn’t want to allow himself to be sidetracked.

            As he made his way to the front door, Dipper accidentally startled a few faeries who were drinking milk out of a ceramic bowl set on the steps leading up to the house. They shot him dirty looks as they flew away, muttering to themselves.

            When Dipper reached the door, he paused. There was something nerve-wracking about doing this; he had never talked to Bill outside of someone in his family, and he was unsure how an outsider would take to the fact that he was living with a demon. Nevertheless, he desperately needed to find out more information on the demon, and Mabel would be pissed at him if he came home having chickened out. Steeling himself for whatever was going to happen next, Dipper nervously picked up the knocker and rapped it a few times against the solid wooden door.

            “Just a second, dear!” a friendly voice called from inside the house. Dipper could feel himself visibly relax; there was no need to be so worked up about a meeting with an elderly woman. Within a few moments, Dipper heard the door creak open.

            A monstrous wolf bounded out of the door, snarling as it pounced on Dipper, sending the man sprawling backwards onto the porch. The creature stood over Dipper, hair standing up and golden eyes wild, waiting for a command from its owner.

            “Down, Fenrir,” the woman who had suddenly appeared at the doorway commanded, chuckling kindly. “Sorry,” she said, “he doesn’t like the smell of demon.”

            Stunned, Dipper struggled to catch his breath as the beast let out a low growl and padded softly back inside the house. “No worries,” he managed to squeak out as he stood, wiping some drool off of his face with the hem of his t-shirt. He wondered how strongly he smelled of demon, and what exactly demon smelled like, suddenly feeling acutely self-conscious.

            “I’m Dipper Pines,” he said once he was standing, holding out a hand and finally able to get a good look at the elderly woman. She was significantly shorter than Dipper, only coming up to about his chest, and her ebony skin was finely wrinkled from years spent outside. Her hair was long and white, pulled back from her face in an intricate braid entwined with flowers. Kind eyes peered up at him as she took his offered hand in her own calloused one, grip surprisingly strong.

            “My name is Melinda. Your sister told me that you might be coming by. She said that you had some questions about demons that you were hoping I could answer.”

            “Yes, I do,” Dipper replied

            “Come in, then. I have a feeling that this will take a while.” Melinda led Dipper inside the cottage, through a short hallway and into a living room. The décor of the room was as rustic as the outside would suggest, dried flowers hanging from the ceiling and various houseplants nearly taking over the windows. A gentle breeze stirred filmy white curtains that covered a window looking out to a small pond, causing rays of sunlight to dance across the walls.

            Melinda motioned for Dipper to sit in one of two worn, plush chairs sitting opposite each other near a coffee table made from a cut and polished slab of wood.

            “Would you like some tea?” she asked.

            “Sure,” Dipper responded, feeling that it would be rude to decline.

            “Be back in just a moment,” Melinda said as she went to what he presumed to be the kitchen to put the kettle on.

            Dipper sat in the woman’s parlor, fidgeting nervously as he waited for her to return. The wolf had settled itself in front of the empty fireplace, head resting on its paws as it watched Dipper intently.

            Within a few minutes Dipper heard the whistle of the kettle blowing and Melinda returned soon after, setting a pot of tea on the coffee table in front of Dipper and pouring a cup for each of them.

            “So,” Melinda began, “tell me about this demon of yours.”

            “Well,” Dipper sighed, “the first time I met him was when I was twelve. I used to come to Gravity Falls every summer for vacation, and over the years he’s caused quite a bit of trouble for my sister and me. There was even one instance when he possessed my body.

            “When I came back at the beginning of the summer, I could immediately tell that something was wrong. When I wasn’t able to perform any spells, I knew that something must have been off with the magic of the Falls, so I went into the forest looking him.”

            “You just went looking for it instead of summoning the demon?” Melinda asked with a quizzical look.

            Dipper nodded. “I didn’t think that a summoning spell would work if simple spells weren’t working.” Melinda nodded, gesturing for Dipper to continue.

            “I’m not sure how I found him, or he found me, but we figured out that there was a way to bring the magic from the Mindscape into Gravity Falls and I made a deal with him.”

            “Ah, so that was you,” she murmured in response. “You should know better than to make a deal with a demon. They’re far cleverer than you and I. What did the demon want in return?”

            “All things considered, he really didn’t want much. He said that the power needed to transfer the magic was going to be so much that it would force him to take a human form, and until he was able to return to his true form he wanted to live with me and my family. In return I made him promise not to harm anyone in Gravity Falls until he was able to take his true form.”

            Melinda leaned back in her chair, chuckling softly. “So you have been living with a demon for all of this time. How has that worked out for you?”

            “It hasn’t been nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be,” Dipper confided. “He’s just not at all what I was expecting. The more I get to know him, the less _evil_ I think that he is. He’s under oath not to harm me or my family, but he could still be an asshole. He helps out around the house, he work for Stan, and he helps me with my nightmares.”

            “Well, it sounds like the deal has worked out surprisingly well for you. You should feel accomplished. Why did you come here today? Your sister made it seem that you had a particular question for me.”

            “Yeah,” Dipper said, fidgeting with his hands and looking down at his lap. “I was, uh, wondering . . . well, to what extent can a demon actually feel . . . human emotions?”

            Melinda sipped at her tea, appraising Dipper with wizened eyes. “It depends on what type of demon we’re talking about,” she finally said, “as well as what emotion.”

            “He’s—he’s a dream demon,” Dipper said nervously.

            “Ah,” was all that the woman said, waiting for Dipper to continue.

            “And as for the emotion, well, I was wondering if dream demons could, er, feel love,” he finished haltingly, cheeks burning and eyes averted from the elderly woman.

            To his utter horror and humiliation, Melinda began laughing at him.

            “Does a dog meow? Does a cat bark? Have you ever seen a fish climb a tree or a snake fly in the air?” Dipper just stared at her, mouth agape. “No,” Melinda continued, “and just as any animal cannot go against its nature, so a demon cannot love. All a demon knows is the thrill of the chase and the joy of the kill. It can experience envy and hate, lust and anger, but just as surely as a human can’t breathe underwater, a demon cannot love. Your demon may be in a human body, but you would be wise to remember what hides beneath the mask.”

            Dipper’s cheeks burned with embarrassment at the denial of what he had so fervently hoped would be true, the elderly woman’s words like a slap to the face. He should have known that this was the only answer he would get. “I see,” he managed to croak out, shame and something else entirely making it hard for him to form the words.

            “But I am curious,” Melinda said, still laughing quietly. “What is the name of this demon?”

            “Bill Cipher.”

            Dipper was not prepared for the woman’s reaction. Her face paled and her hands began trembling so badly that the tea in her cup started sloshing over the sides. Fenrir let out a nervous whine from his spot on the floor. Dipper reached forward and took the cup out of her hands, placing it on the table.

            “Bill Cipher,” Melinda began once she had composed herself enough to speak, “is one of the cruelest demons I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. He is a lying, manipulative bastard who cannot be trusted. He’ll string you along and seduce you, telling you anything you want to hear to get you to sign your soul away to him. I can’t begin to imagine why he didn’t ask for your soul in exchange for restoring the magic.”

            She clutched at Dipper’s hands desperately, eyes pleading with him. “Get out while you still can, before the demon ropes you in and eats you alive.”

            Dipper nodded, still reeling from the woman’s reaction. “I think it’s time for me to go,” he said, scrambling out of the chair and making his way toward the door.

            “I have one more question for you,” Melinda said, getting up from the chair and walking towards Dipper. “How was he able to transfer the magic from the Mindscape? He would need some sort of channel for the magic.”

            “Oh,” Dipper said, “He used me, somehow.” He pulled down the collar of his shirt, revealing the brand.             Melinda’s eyes went wide with panic and she frantically began muttering in a language that Dipper couldn’t place, tracing the raised flesh gently with her calloused finger before yanking her hand away as if it burned. Fenrir let out a menacing growl, leaving his station by the fireplace to stalk slowly toward Dipper.

            “Run away, boy,” Melinda called from the doorway of her house as Dipper hurriedly made his way back to the car. “Run away before the devil steals your soul as well as your sense.”

~~

            Dipper returned later that night after driving around for a bit, needing to be alone to process the events from earlier.

            Dipper thought about the woman’s words during the drive, pondering how Bill acted around him. He didn’t _seem_ like he was trying to seduce Dipper on purpose. How was he to know exactly how much Dipper had come to love the way that he would walk around the shack in his pajamas until afternoon on their days off, or the way that his face scrunched up when he encountered some aspect of human life that was new to him, or the way he sometimes fondly smiled at Mabel when he thought no one was looking at him?

            Shit. Mabel was right; he had it bad.

            Dipper returned to a quiet household, strange since it was the time that Stan usually watched his television shows before going to bed. Bill came into the kitchen when he heard the front door open.

            “Oh, you’re home,” he said as he watched Dipper prepare a meal. “Where were you all day?”

            “Out,” was the only answer that Dipper gave.

            Bill let out a snort but didn’t question Dipper further, eventually leaving the human to sulk alone.

            Dipper went to bed early again that night, but he laid awake until long after Bill joined him. His mind churned with the events of the day, but he was unable to come to any revelations about his situation. The demon’s soft snores provided a calm background noise to Dipper’s racing thoughts, and eventually succeeded in lulling him to sleep.


	14. Enough is enough is enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mabel's POV!  
> Title is from YES! YES!! YES!!! by Barenaked Ladies

Two things were abundantly clear to Mabel Pines: one was that her brother and Bill were utterly infatuated with each other; the other was that they were both completely oblivious to it.

            Mabel certainly hadn’t planned for her summer to turn out the way that it did. For starters, she had been planning on a spending a lot more time catching up with her friends. She hadn’t meant to spend so much of her summer working at the Mystery Shack, but it had been an unusually good year for tourism, and Stan had been short-handed ever since Soos and Wendy left. A large portion of her time had also been devoted to cleaning up the Shack and aiding with the repair work. She wouldn’t exactly describe Stan as a _hoarder_ , more of a pack rat, but he was certainly on his way to a TLC special.

            She also hadn’t planned on having the demon who had antagonized her and Dipper throughout their childhood as a housemate. The demon who, it seemed, her brother had fallen in love with.

            It certainly hadn’t begun that way; at the start of the summer, Dipper wanted nothing to do with Bill. Mabel had watched her brother ignore the demon who followed him around like a lost duckling day after day. But slowly, it seemed, the two had grown closer. Somewhere amid the long summer days spent fixing up the shack and poring over dusty, ancient books, the two had formed an uneasy friendship.

            Mabel had been slow to recognize it at first, but before long she found herself noticing small changes in the men’s behavior. It was evident in the way that Dipper stopped automatically walking out of any room that Bill was in, and when he started giving the demon responsibilities around the house, even asking Bill to cook dinner for the family on nights when the Mystery Shack was unusually busy. And it was even more evident in the way that Bill obeyed Dipper without much more than a snide remark.

            Mabel couldn’t pinpoint exactly when, but at some point over the summer the unlikely friendship had grown into something else entirely. She had first noticed when Bill’s eyes began tracking Dipper’s ever move, the demon unconsciously moving closer to her twin whenever they were together. His eyes softened whenever Dipper entered the room, and on more than one occasion she caught a smile ghosting over the demon’s face as he watched Dipper argue with Stan or trip over his own feet.       

            It wasn’t soon after that Mabel noticed Dipper start acting differently, too. She almost never saw Dipper anymore without Bill being in the same room, and whenever her twin wasn’t with the demon he seemed at a loss for what to do. Dipper had always been the more subdued one of the twins, and could at times be downright melancholic, but Bill had brought out a fiery side of him that even Mabel had never seen before. Dipper was always more animated when he was with Bill, and the demon had succeeded in drawing Dipper out of his shell more that Mabel had ever been able to.

            During the party, Mabel had been worried when she noticed her brother downing a few too many shots. He had never been able to handle his liquor, but slung over the arm of a beaming Gideon, there was little that she could do to set the matter right. When she later saw Dipper back Bill into a corner, arms around each other and lips locked, she had nearly let out a squeal of joy. She had thought that finally, _finally_ the two would be able to admit to each other what they had been feeling. But of course Bill had to be the gentlemen and refuse her drunken twin’s advances.

            Mabel wondered if the situation would have turned out differently if Dipper had been sober, but reasoned that if her anxiety-prone twin hadn’t been under the influence of anything, he never would have been brave enough to make the first move.

            Mabel noticed the tension that had suddenly formed between the two men ever since the party with a sick feeling. Bill, it seemed, was determined to avoid Dipper as much as he was able whenever they weren’t working together to stop Gideon. The idle touches had stopped, as well as the glances she had often noticed them exchanging. They only talked to one another when it was absolutely necessary, and even then only in clipped sentences.

            Dipper seemed mortified by the whole experience, determined to chalk his actions up to the vodka alone and not to any actual feelings on his part. He was even gloomier than usual, and had taken to locking himself in his room whenever he wasn’t under obligation to be doing anything else. Mabel wanted nothing more than to be able to cheer him up, but was unsure what she could do to remedy the problem.  

            Bill, on the other hand, was acting as though someone had drowned his kittens. So to speak.

            He seemed angry—well, angrier than usual—though Mabel was unable to tell who exactly his anger was directed at. His temper had shortened to almost nothing, and on more than one occasion he had snapped at Mabel before stalking out of the room.

            When he wasn’t fuming about whatever it was that was bothering him, the demon started spending his time melancholically staring out the window, or at the tv, or even at the wall. If Mabel hadn’t known better, she almost would have thought that he seemed worried about something.

            Mabel was sure that if the two just talked it out they would realize that they both felt the same way about each other, but she could see that they would never reach that conclusion on their own.

            She wasn’t sure that it was her place to interfere in her brother’s love affairs, but she reasoned that any problem of Dipper’s was a problem of her own—that’s what being twins was all about, right?

            Unsure where else to turn, Mabel decided it was time for her to consult the only people who could help her in a matter like this.

~~

            Grenda, Candy, Pacifica, and Mabel sat in a circle on the floor of her room, reminiscent of the countless sleepovers they had had when they were younger. Mabel had called the three over for an emergency meeting, not going into much detail over the phone as to what exactly the emergency was.

            “So,” Mabel began once everyone had helped themselves to the various snacks she had set out, “as you all may have already noticed, Grunkle Stan hired a new employee for the summer, Bill.”

            “He is dreamy,” Candy said. Pacifica and Grenda nodded in fervent agreement.

            “I know! Yeah . . . well, Dipper _totally_ has the biggest crush on him,” Mabel continued.

            The girls gasped and squealed. “They’d totally make an adorable couple,” Pacifica said approvingly.

            “I know,” Mabel sighed. “And I can tell that Bill likes Dipper too, even if he won’t admit it to himself. They both care about each other a lot, and I think they might even be in love. But neither one wants to admit it.”

            The only drawback to asking her undoubtedly mundane friends for advice in this situation was that none of them could give her any guidance as to whether or not setting her twin up with a demon was a good idea. Throughout her summers at Gravity Falls, Mabel had never encountered any demons other than Bill Cipher. If she had been considering the same question years ago, when she and Dipper were just awkward pre-teens and Bill was the bane of their existence, she would had undoubtedly been appalled at the idea of Dipper being in any way engaged with the floating triangle.

            However, Bill had undergone a remarkable change throughout the summer, and more often than not Mabel found herself forgetting his true nature.

            “At Gideon’s party on Friday, Dipper drunk-kissed Bill and Bill pushed him away, but I think it was only because he didn’t want to take advantage of Dipper while he was drunk.”

            Pacifica laughed. “I saw that happen! Dipper’s much friendlier drunk than he is sober. He even complimented my dress.”

            Mabel grimaced. “Yeah, he doesn’t usually drink much.”

            Candy nodded gravely. “It is good that you came to us for help.”

            “I just don’t know what else to do!” Mabel exclaimed in frustration, throwing her hands up in the air as she paced in front of the other women. “I had Dipper meet someone who I thought could help him with it, but I think I ended up just making it worse. And I wouldn’t even know where to start with Bill; that guy can be harder to read than Stan.”

            “It sounds like they just need some sort of push,” Pacifica said slowly. “We obviously know that Dipper has feelings for him, that was pretty evident at the party, but Bill didn’t want to take advantage of him. We all know that Dipper’s too much of a chicken to make the first move if he isn’t under the influence of something, so it sounds like we’re going to have to try to convince Bill to make the first move.”

            “But how do we give them a push?” Mabel sighed.

Pacifica snapped her fingers, a mischievous smile suddenly lighting up her face as she began rummaging through her purse. “I think I have just the thing . . . tada!” Pacifica exclaimed, triumphantly holding up a small vial.

            “Pacifica,” Mabel began warily, “what _is_ that?”

            “Well, you know how Gravity Falls has a bit of a tendency towards the magical?”

            Mabel rolled her eyes. “You don’t say.”

            “This is one of those things. I suppose the best term for it would be an aphrodisiac. But boy, does it work.”

            Mabel blanched. “Pacifica, I don’t know if I feel comfortable using a love potion on my brother. Or on Bill, for that matter. It seems a bit too meddling for me.”

            “Don’t worry, it only works towards whoever the person who takes it is in love with. If they aren’t in love with anyone, it has no effect at all. Learned that the hard way,” Pacifica muttered darkly to herself. “The person it’s used on has to be consenting for it to work. It’s just going to give them the push that they need.”

            “And you just carry that around with you?” Candy asked dubiously, eyeing the potion like a starving dog might eye a steak.

            Pacifica grinned. “When Mabel called us over here in a hurry, I had a feeling that we might need it.”

            “I’d go for it,” Grenda asserted.

            “If it’s only going to work if they actually love each other, I don’t see the harm in it,” Candy agreed.

            “Fine,” Mabel sighed. “Let’s do it.”

            Mabel hoped that this was a good idea. While meddling in her brother’s love life was nothing new to her, she wasn’t sure that him being in a relationship with a demon was really the best idea. But this would be the true test, wouldn’t it? If Bill wasn’t really in love with Dipper, then the love potion wouldn’t work on him at all.

            She thought of the way that the often saw said demon gazing at him, though, and knew without a doubt that the aphrodisiac was going to work on Bill. Mabel may not have been as book smart as her brother, but she knew love when she saw it.

            “Okay, let’s do it,” Mabel relented. Candy and Grenda gave small cheers; they obviously thought that the plan was a good one.

            Pacifica smiled wickedly. “I was hoping you would say that.”

            The next day, the girls planned to put their plan into action.


	15. Reach out and touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is Touch by Troye Sivan  
> ;)

        The Mystery Shack was once again uncharacteristically busy the next day, the summer proving to be one of the best for tourism. Dipper could never quite understand what the appeal was of vacationing in Gravity Falls, but the influx of travelers brought in some much needed revenue, for which he was grateful. Stan may have been a stingy old man, but Dipper was unsure how much money he had actually saved up over the years, and he Mabel certainly didn’t have enough money to pay for the old man’s impending retirement.

            That night, however, found Dipper and Bill alone for dinner. Stan had gone on a date with Suzan; despite not hitting it off at first, the two had been trying to make some sort of relationship work over the years, if out of nothing but sheer loneliness. Mabel was out with her friends; they were going on some sort of girl’s night shopping trip/sleepover, so she wouldn’t be back till the next morning.

            Dipper was glad that Mabel had gotten to go out; he knew that she had wanted to spend more time with her childhood friends than she had been able to, and he didn’t want her to spend too much time worrying about Gravity Falls. He was the paranoid twin, it shouldn’t have to be her job as well.

            Dipper had anticipated an awkward night alone with Bill, as the two still hadn’t spoken much since the incident at the party. But Mabel had picked out a movie for the two to watch, claiming that it was just the type Bill was into. Dipper hadn’t seen it before so he decided they could give it a shot; it looked like a typical low-budget horror film that would be more unintentionally humorous than actually frightening.

            After dinner, which consisted of takeout from a pizza joint on Main Street since neither had the energy to cook that night, the two settled on either ends of the couch to watch the horror flick. Bill had cracked open a bottle of blue Mountain Dew, a drink that he had loved from the first sip. Dipper resolutely hated the sugary drink, claiming that it tasted like cancer in a bottle due to its artificiality. Mabel had left the drink for Bill, along with a pitt cola for Dipper, when she brought them the DVD that she insisted they watch. Dipper had found it a bit unusual that his twin was so attentive to the two, but decided to let it slide.

            As Bill took a sip from the drink, a strange look crossed over his face. He lowered the bottle slowly, a grin quirking one side of his mouth, and it appeared as though he was trying not to laugh.

            “What?” Dipper asked, confused.

            “Nothing,” Bill answered quickly. “Let’s play the movie.”

            The movie proved to be exactly what Dipper expected it to be, consisting of the cheesy effects that Bill for some reason found hilarious. About halfway through, it even proved to have a steamy sex scene that Dipper had grown to categorize with unrated horror flicks. It was a bit more drawn out than necessary, but Dipper had grown up watching these movies and was used to these type of scenes.  

            Normally such a scene wouldn’t have flustered Dipper, but he couldn’t help but notice Bill surreptitiously watching him out of the corner of his eye. Dipper faked a cough and quickly glanced away, quick to chalk it up to the non-human weirdness that Bill sometimes exhibited.  

            As the scene stretched on, Dipper found himself praying that it would just end already. He could feel Bill’s eyes boring holes into him, but he didn’t dare looked over, instead pointedly fixing his attention on a loose thread in the couch. Finally, the scene was over, and Dipper was able to breathe again. He waited a few minutes before sitting up from the couch.

            “Bill—,” Dipper started, stuttering when he realized that the demon was still watching him with the same intensity. “I—I’m just going to head up to bed, I think,” Dipper continued after a few moments, still unnerved by the look in the demon’s eyes. “I’m just really tired from all the work today. You finish the movie, though.”

            “Oh, okay,” Bill said with the same odd look in his eye.

~~

            Dipper had just washed up for bed and was in the process of unbuttoning his shirt when he got the prickling sensation that someone was watching him.

            “Pine Tree,” Bill called from the doorway, voice low and rough.

            “What—,” Dipper spun around, only to be caught off guard by Bill, who had appeared directly behind him. The demon’s eyes were dark as he smiled, revealing pointed incisors.

            He wound his fingers through the belt loops of Dipper jeans, roughly pulling the shorter man towards him so that they were all but pressed together.

            “Bill?” Dipper asked hesitantly, his voice barely more than a squeak as his heart picked up its frantic pace.

            The demon leaned in slowly, breath hot against Dipper’s ear. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this for?” he practically purred.

            Dipper’s breath hitched in his throat, eyes wide in disbelief, not daring to move. Bill looked down at him for a long moment, as if to judge the man’s reaction, then leaned in to Dipper in one fluid motion.

            Bill’s lips were softer than Dipper remembered, and he found himself melting into the embrace. His mind seemed to have stopped working altogether, as all he could think was _Bill Bill Bill Bill_ as he kissed the demon back without any hesitation.

            There was nothing soft or loving about the kiss, it was all animalistic need and sharp teeth and Dipper couldn’t help but think, _this is what it’s like to kiss a demon_. Bill’s nails, sharper than Dipper thought they should have been, dug into the human’s hips as if to drive the point home.

            Bill kissed a line along Dipper’s jaw to his ear, nipping at the soft flesh and murmuring words in a language Dipper couldn’t hope to comprehend. Dipper tangled his hands in the soft golden locks of Bill’s hair, a shudder running through his entire body. Bill’s mouth languidly moved down to the curve of Dipper’s collarbone, biting down hard and licking the skin when Dipper let out a gasp of pain that ended in a moan.

            _Shit,_ Dipper thought in a haze, _that’s going to leave a mark._

            Melinda’s words echoed inside of Dipper’s head; _A demon can’t feel love_ , and _He’ll eat you alive._ But lust was one thing, Dipper thought. Lust was different than love.

            Bill’s eyes studied the human as if waiting for him to either pull away or return the golden-haired man’s advances.

            _Fuck it_ , Dipper thought, grabbing the front of Bill’s shirt to pull him in closer, mashing their lips together a bit more forcefully than he had meant to and wincing at the soft clink of teeth on teeth.

            Bill responded with fervor, biting on Dipper’s lower lip before tangling their tongues together.

That had Dipper arching into him, nails desperately digging into the demon’s back. Bill growled low in his throat, a possessive sound that sent a jolt down Dipper’s spine

Dipper felt hands playing with the hemline of his shirt, quickly undoing the few remaining buttons. He bit back a moan as Bill’s hands slipped inside his open shirt, fingernails leaving red marks as they raked across his ribcage.

            Dipper shucked his shirt off and was quick to help Bill be rid of his. The two moved towards the beds, Dipper allowing Bill to push him down as the demon leaned over him, kissing a line down the man’s chest.

When Bill reached the brand, he traced his finger around it slowly, causing Dipper to shudder beneath him. He then traced it with his tongue, meticulously giving attention to every swirl of the brand.

Dipper couldn’t hold back another moan of pleasure as his fingers tugged at Bill’s hair; that felt _incredible_. Bill grinned knowingly. “That’s because this binds you to me,” he breathed, voice husky.

            Dipper knew that those words probably should have at least mildly concerned him, but the only effect they had was to make Dipper cup his hand behind Bill’s neck and pull him down for another kiss.

            Bill grinned into the kiss, running his hands down Dipper’s sides until he reached his hips, fingers playing with the button of Dipper’s jeans. He sat up, hips pressed flush against Dipper’s and arms forming a cage around him as he stared down with a predatory gaze. Bill’s pupils were blown wide, hair mussed and lips swollen and red.

            Dipper struggled to catch his breath; the hungry look in the demon’s eyes set his body on fire.

            “If you want me to stop,” Bill purred, running his hand down Dipper’s face softly before trailing it down his throat, stopping at his jugular as if to measure his racing pulse, “Tell me now.” The demon tilted his head, smiling menacingly, as if he already knew what Dipper’s answer would be.

            “Do. Not. Stop,” Dipper all but growled as he pulled Bill back down to him. Bill laughed wickedly, crashing their mouths back together.

~~

            The night was a blur of hot tongues, fevered touches, and breathless moans. The two fell asleep in the same bed, molded around one another as if carved from the same stone.

            Dipper awoke sometime later to the sound of the front door being noisily opened and slammed closed, knowing from his feeling of unrest and the darkness of the room that it was nowhere near morning.        

            “Dipper! Bill!” Stan yelled from downstairs. This caused Bill to jerk awake. The two glanced at each other in alarm; Stan rarely sounded so panicked. They quickly jumped out of bed, scrambling to put their clothes on before racing downstairs.

            If Stan noticed their disheveled appearances he didn’t comment, far too preoccupied with whatever news he had. His face was pale, and he was wheezing so hard that Dipper worried that he might pass out.

            “Grunkle Stan, what’s wrong?” Dipper asked fearfully.

            “Gideon has Mabel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to anyone who was hoping that chapter would get a bit more steamy, this is as much as I'm comfortable with writing :)


	16. Take your shot, I won't turn back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in two days!  
> Title is from Won't Turn Back by NEEDTOBREATHE  
> Thanks to absolutely everyone who has commented and/or left kudos, y'all rock =D

_“Gideon has Mabel.”_

            Dipper’s heart leapt into his throat and he suddenly felt as though we was unable to breathe, the only sound in his ears the rush of blood. “What do you mean he _has_ her? Where is she?”

            “Would I be here if I knew?” the old man snapped, sinking into his armchair as he struggled to catch his breath. “I was at Greasy’s and I saw the girls she was supposed to be with tonight. Normally I wouldn’t get involved with Mabel and her friends, I know she can take care of herself, but I had a bad feeling. I asked them where she was and they told me that she had gone somewhere with Gideon in a pretty big hurry.”

            “She never would have willingly gone with him,” Dipper quickly asserted, color draining from his face.

            “I called her cell but no answer,” Stan said grimly.

            Dipper felt Bill tense behind him at the old man’s words. “If he hurt Shooting Star,” Bill growled, voice more menacing than Dipper had heard in a long time, “that insignificant brat is worse than dead.” Dipper glanced at Bill in surprise; the demon was visibly seething, hands balled into tight fists and knuckles white. His eyes had turned a deeper shade of gold and flashed dangerously. Dipper hadn’t expected Bill to care so much about Mabel, and in any other situation would have taken the time to deliberate over what that might mean.

            “We have to find her.” He was stating the obvious, Dipper knew, but he didn’t know where else to start.

            “We have to figure out where she is first,” Stan said, mouth drawn into a grim line.          

            “Okay, think, think,” Dipper said as he paced back and forth. “Where could Gideon have taken her? To his mansion? We could always start there, but how would we get in? And the place is so big that we could spend hours looking for her and they might not even be there.”

            Bill and Stan both looked at him blankly and Dipper felt the beginnings of despair clutch at his chest. He had no idea how they were going to find his sister, especially in a town as shrouded in magic as Gravity Falls. He glanced at Bill and saw the demon apparently deep in thought as he ran his hand over agitatedly his face. Dipper vacantly noticed that a purple bruise was blossoming on his neck.

            “Do you have anything of hers?” Bill asked suddenly, eyes snapping to Dipper’s.

            “What are you thinking?” Dipper’s heart rose with hope at the demon’s eager eyes.

            “I should have enough of my power back to do a simple locating spell,” Bill said as he rushed to the kitchen, hurriedly pulling candles that Dipper hadn’t even known they had out of a cupboard. “Find me something that belongs to Shooting Star and a map of Gravity Falls.”

            Dipper raced upstairs to Mabel’s room; what was something of hers that would work well for the spell? Her bedroom was reminiscent of a nuclear fallout, there must have been something amidst the rumpled up magazines and swatches of cloth that would work. His eyes fell on her vanity table, upon which her hairbrush rested. He grabbed it and raced downstairs, where Bill had already set up a circle of candles around a map of Gravity Falls and surrounding areas that Stan had found.

            “Perfect,” Bill muttered as Dipper handed him the brush. With an incomprehensible word from Bill the candles jumped to life, their meager flames the only light source in the darkened room. Bill closed his eyes, holding his hands over the circle as he began muttering the spell. Dipper and Stan stood to the side anxiously, watching at Bill’s brow furrowed in concentration, a light sheen of sweat coating his face. When he opened his eyes they were glowing with a golden light and he continued chanting words to a spell at a frightening pace. A breeze suddenly picked up in the otherwise peaceful night, ruffling the moth-eaten curtains as it blew through the open windows.

            A spark fell from one of the candles, landing on the map where it proceeded to burn through the paper. The flame consumed more and more of the paper until only half of the map remained, a small area of Gravity Falls that included the Mystery Shack. Finally all but a thin strip of map was left. Bill grabbed the paper and held it up. “Gopher Road,” he announced.

            “What--,” Dipper began, but as Bill held the paper in the flat of his hand the flame ate away all but one address. Stan and Dipper leaned over Bill as they all stared at the location.

            “But that’s right by us,” Stan said, rubbing the back of his neck.

            “412 Gopher Road . . . .” Dipper should have known. Images of the warehouse precariously perched on the cliff jumped to his mind. It was just like Gideon to take Mabel to the place where he and Dipper had first fought all those years ago.

            “You know where that is?” Bill asked Dipper.

            Dipper nodded. “It’ll take us five minutes to get there.”

            “Let’s go,” Bill said. With a snap of his fingers the car keys appeared in Dipper’s hand. _How much of his power has he gotten back?_ Dipper wondered idly as the three raced out the door. But that question wasn’t a pressing issue at the moment.

            The drive to the place was tense and quiet; Dipper had his foot pressed down all the way on the gas pedal for the entire drive but the ancient car wasn’t able to go very fast. His mind spun with various ideas as to what Gideon wanted with Mabel; none of them were good, and he soon forwent imagination in lieu of urging the car on faster. The engine groaned at Dipper as if to say _I’m too old for this, kid,_ but obediently chugged along.

            When they arrived at 412 Gopher road, Dipper’s heart sank in his chest. The place was even more run-down than he remembered, and there were no cars in sight that would point to anyone being there.

            Dipper slammed the car into park, the car jerking forward with the sudden shift in gears. He threw open his door, running the rest of the way to the building, Bill hot on his heels and Stan not far behind. When they opened the doors to the decrepit warehouse, there was nothing to be found. Dipper’s heart leapt into his throat; the magic couldn’t have lied. But there was nothing here, and no signs that anyone had been here anytime recently. There was nowhere in the junk-filled room a person could have been hiding.

            Dipper felt his breath catch in his throat, face draining of all color as a realization hit him. Gideon wouldn’t have—he couldn’t have . . . .

            “Pine Tree,” Bill called from a corner of the room. He hurriedly pushed long-forgotten boxes and other rubbish out of the way, revealing a more modern looking door. Bill pulled it open, and the three gazed at the opening in shock: it revealed a staircase trailing down into darkness.

            “They’re in the cliff,” Dipper said in amazement, peering into the gloom. “There must be a room or something down there.”

            “Let’s go,” Bill said, giving Dipper a gentle push that made the man start scrambling down the stairs.

            The staircase twisted this way and that, and with no light to guide them the going was slow. Though the door had looked modern, the staircase seemed old, steps unevenly spaced and slick with dampness from being underground. Dipper had a hard time keeping himself from pitching forward, and on more than one occasion Bill’s hands steadying him at his waist were the only thing keeping him from tumbling down the rest of the staircase into the dank darkness beyond. He wondered if the demon was able to see in the dark better than him, and was thankful that it seemed to be true. Occasionally Dipper would hear Stan curse from behind them, the old man having more trouble making his way down the stairs than the younger men.

            Finally, Dipper found himself step onto even ground. He gave himself a moment to catch his breath before pressing forward into what he imagined was a small open space. After a few moments, his eyes adjusted and Dipper was able to see light peeking through the vague outline of a door. Walking forward with his arms outstretched, Dipper bumped into a cold metal door. He reach down and quietly turned the handle, letting out a sigh of relief: it was unlocked.

            “It’s through here,” Dipper said, then suddenly stopped. “What do we do?” he asked quietly, confidence failing him. If they burst through the door Gideon would instantly know that they were there, and it was with a sinking feeling that Dipper realized they had no real plan. What were they going to do when they got in there? They had no idea what awaited them, and this could be their only chance to save Mabel. No one else even knew where they were.

            Bill placed his hand over Dipper’s on the handle, gently but firmly pushing the door open.

            “I guess that answers that question,” Dipper muttered, slipping through the door with Bill and Stan close behind him.

            For a moment Dipper thought that they had walked into heaven itself as his eyes attempted to adjust to the blinding light, a painful contrast from the gloom they had just made their way through.

            The room was far vaster than what he had imagined could be hiding inside the cliff. It was lab-like; everything in it was white or chrome. In the front of the room, raised up, was a large, triangular . . . contraption. Various controls sat in front of it, countless buttons and levers and flashing lights. Dipper was hit with a sudden blast of nostalgia; though shaped differently, the machine was reminiscent of the portal that Stanley had returned through during Dipper’s first summer at Gravity Falls.

            A few men and women in lab coats fiddled with computers, barely sparing a glance for the now-grimy newcomers.

            It was certainly different from the dank dungeon that Dipper had imagined would be buried beneath the cliff, and at first glance he wasn’t even able to spot either of the people they were there to find. Finally, though, Dipper spied that white-haired man across the room, seemingly deep in conversation with one of the scientists.

            “Gideon,” Dipper yelled with a sudden burst of confidence, adrenaline fueling him. The genial hum of activity amid the room came to a standstill as all of the scientists locked eyes on the three newcomers. Bill trembled with anticipation next to him. Dipper had the vague idea that if he gave the word, the demon would have Gideon’s head at his feet in a heartbeat.

            At first it seemed that Gideon hadn’t heard Dipper, but then he slowly spun around to face the three, a shit-eating grin licking its way across his pale, freckled face. “Ah, I had a feeling you might find us, Dipper Pines.”


	17. I'll bend the world to our will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from Freeze Ray from Dr. Horrible's Song Along Blog  
> Alternate title: That obligatory chapter where the villain reveals their master plan for no discernible reason.

Dipper glared at Gideon from the doorway, hyperaware of Bill leering behind him. “Gideon. Where is my sister and what do you want with her?” he ground out.

            The shorter man just grinned at the three as they made their way into the lab, glancing warily at the men and women in labcoats, though they made no move to stop them.

            “Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” Gideon assured, southern twang brimming with faux compassion, “she’s safe and sound with me.”

            “Why. Did. You. Kidnap. My. Sister.” Dipper’s voice echoed slightly in the vast room, deeper and more sinister than it had ever sound before.

            Bill glanced down at Dipper appreciatively. He rarely saw the man brought to anger, and had assuredly never seen him so livid.

            “Oh, well, if you _really_ have to know,” Gideon sighed dramatically, “every king needs his queen, and when Mabel didn’t want to be mine, I figured I’d just have to persuade her in other ways.”

            So that was it. Dipper should have known; Gideon still hadn’t given up on Mabel from all those years ago. His party should have been evidence enough of that, but Dipper hadn’t thought that Gideon would go to such extremes.

            “You’re a sick bastard,” Dipper spat, at the same time that Bill said, “King? What do you mean by king?”

            There was a flicker of some dark emotion over Gideon’s face before it settled back into its amiable grin at Bill’s question; evidently, he hadn’t liked Dipper’s remark. “Why, I’m so glad you asked, Bill! Soon, I will be reinstating myself as the king of Gravity Falls. All of its inhabitants are mindless sheep, and they will do well with someone as born to lead as myself.”          

            There was something in the glint of Gideon’s eyes that made Dipper wary; though the boy had always been odd, he was clearly not in his right mind. “Gideon, you’re insane,” he said slowly, matter-of-factly rather than accusatory. Evidently spending his formative years among Gravity Falls’ finest had not done Gideon well.

            Chuckling quietly, Gideon shrugged. “You know, I’ve gotten that quite a bit over the past few years, but I’ve learned to just shrug it off! You aren’t the first person to confuse genius with insanity.”

            “Gideon. Where is Mabel?” Stan growled, speaking for the first time. His face was stern, hands balled into fists at his side, and Dipper was able to see a glance of what the old man must have been like when he was younger, full of gusto and foolish bravery.

            “Oh, she’s right here,” Gideon said, gesturing to a plush chair raised up on the same pedestal as the strange machine.

            Mabel lay strewn across the chair, apparently sleeping. She looked none the worse for wear.

            “Mabel!” Dipper cried, sprinted to her side. Gideon made no move to stop him, simply watching with a superior grin as Dipper raced to his twin.

            “Mabel, wake up,” Dipper muttered, shaking her gently. She didn’t respond.

            “What did you do to her, you bastard?” Dipper growled at Gideon.

            “Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head,” the white-haired man chuckled. “She’s just sleeping. See, she wasn’t so complicit to my plans, but I think that once she realizes she has no family to go back to she’ll be much more compliant.”

            “We know that you’ve been taking the magic away from Gravity Falls,” Dipper said, standing with his back to Mabel protectively, his body acting as a shield between her and Gideon. He chose to ignore the last comment. “What are you planning, Gideon?”

            Gideon laughed, a sound that sent chills down Dipper’s spine. “You thought that I wanted to drain all of the magic from Gravity Falls? That was certainly a nice side effect, but it was never my main goal.

            “See, being in prison for all of those years certainly gave me a lot of time to think. And I got to thinking, and I came to realize that every time I try to steal the Mystery Shack, something goes wrong. No matter what I do I can’t take that damned tourist trap from your uncle. It’s almost as if the place is cursed against me, which, in this town, I would certainly belie—”

            “Wait, you’re still caught up on trying to steal the Shack?!” Dipper interjected.

            “Silence!” Gideon screamed, eyes wild. Dipper felt Bill stiffen behind him in surprise; the man’s mind was obviously farther gone than they had originally thought. He visibly composed himself before continuing.

            “I realized that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with trying to steal the Mystery Shack. So, I set to work figuring out how I could get what I actually wanted from the Shack: the dimension portal. And I figured out exactly what I needed.”

            Gideon gestured to the far corner of the room, which Dipper had hardly noticed when they came in. Half shielded by the controllers in front of the portal sat Fiddleford McGucket, legs and arms strapped down to a chair and various wires attached to his head and body, leading to various computers. His eyes were open, staring vacantly into nothingness.

            Suddenly, it all made sense to Dipper. Gideon had still been in prison when Stan had activated the portal and brought Ford back. He had never found out exactly what the portal did, and still thought that it would lead him to great power. He had never found out who the author truly was.  

            “See, the inmates of Gravity Falls Prison know a lot. After a bit of asking around, it didn’t take me long to figure out that McGucket here was the accomplice to none other than the author of the journals. And when I found out that he was the one who designed the universe portal, well, I knew that he would be a big ole’ help to me. The only problem was that McGucket had lost his marbles throughout the years. So, I built a memory retriever by reversing the plans of the memory eraser made by the Society of the Blind Eye. Slowly, it was able to extract McGucket’s forgotten memories and I was able to piece together the plan for the universe portal. With a few changes, I was able to create this.” Gideon held up his hands, gazing proudly upon the machine like a devout disciple at the feet of his false god.

            “McGucket was right when he thought that something was going wrong with the plans for the machine, but he had no idea how right he was. This . . . creation is more powerful than any of you imagined.” The last part was clearly directed at Stan. Gideon glanced at the machine with a hungry look in his eyes.

            That didn’t seem right to Dipper; the portal that Ford had come through had served its purpose well. It had broken again shortly after he had returned, though, and none of them had bother to try to fix it. With his twin returned, Stan had no more use for the portal. Although, on occasions when he had had a bit too much to drink, he had warned grandchildren of the power the portal could hold. . . .

            “The author may have built the portal with the intention of benefitting all of mankind, but he was so shortsighted. Although, ‘the good of mankind’ certainly did make a good tale to tell all of those investors.

            “Everything was going so well. With Pa’s new fortune, I was able to renovate this secret chamber into my own laboratory. I hired some of the best scientists and engineers I could find, and we set to work building my beautiful creation. And the most glorious thing is that it works! I was able to make a few adjustments to Fiddleford’s plans, and found a viable source of energy: magic.

            “See, the original plans for the portal called for nuclear waste as a fuel source. That would have worked, except that the veil between dimensions isn’t as thin here as it is at the Mystery Shack. So I needed something with a little more power, something that would weaken the barrier between the worlds in addition to powering the portal. And magic served both purposes perfectly.

            “That was where we ran into a problem: the magic of Gravity Fall wasn’t quite enough to actually power the machine to full capacity, and we couldn’t pull enough through from any other dimension. So, we had to call in worldwide experts. None of them were keen on travelling across the country to some obscure town in Oregon for God knows what purpose, so I held my party to put them at ease. I invited more colleagues than necessary, and only a handful knew the true reason they were there. That way there was less of a chance of my true plans being leaked. It seemed much more official, and was a better way to get us all in the same room to collaborate on how to fix my little problem. However, all that turned out to be unnecessary, because when we tried the machine again on a whim after months of it being in hibernation, lo and behold there was more magic to power it!”

            Gideon grinned at Dipper in a way that seemed to the man to be more a baring of teeth than a show of geniality. “I have to imagine that your arrival had something to do with the sudden restoration of magic.”

            Dipper groaned inwardly; by saving the forest he and Bill had inadvertently helped Gideon. He took a good look at the machine for the first time; the answer to what was taking the magic from Gravity Falls had been lying in front of him the entire summer! He had dismissed the portal in the journals as impossible to replicate without all three books, but Gideon had managed to find the machine’s original creator, which was just as good.

            “I still don’t understand,” Stan spoke up, his voice a hoarse growl. “What are you planning to do with the portal?

            Gideon grinned as if he had been waiting for someone to ask him that question. “I want power. Power, and revenge. The interdimensional location of this town is brimming with possibility, but everyone who lives here is too stupid or short-sighted to see it. So, it’s up to me to make this town bring me the glory I deserve. McGucket here helped me make a device quite similar to the one that the Society of the Blind Eye had; with a few shots from it the entire town will be as complacent as lab rats, the workforce to my new regime. And Mabel and I will be the Queen and King to rule over them all.”

            “You can’t possibly think that you’ll be able to get away with this,” Dipper interjected.    

            “I know that I’ll be able to pull this off—there is simply nothing standing in my way. Once I’m rid of you three there’ll be no one to stop me. I am sorry you had to come out tonight, though. It looks like I interrupted something.” Gideon taunted with a knowing smirk, and looking down, Dipper noticed that in his haste he had put his shirt on inside out.

            Dipper flushed bright red and saw Bill’s already steely gaze harden out of the corner of his eye. Gideon just smiled in victory.

            “Give us the girl, child,” Bill said calmly. Too calmly. Dipper glanced at him in grim anticipation. Gideon didn’t know what he was getting himself into, and as much as Dipper loathed him, he wasn’t sure that he wished Bill’s full wrath released upon the man.

            “As if!” Gideon exclaimed gleefully. “It’ll be far more fun to watch you all struggle to take her from me. And when you fail, as I know that you will, it’ll be so much fun to let her watch you die.” The man’s eyes were wild. “Then Mabel will finally understand the consequences of denying me for so long.”

            Dipper wondered exactly what had happened to Gideon in prison; he had always been an awful kid, but he had never been so sick and twisted.

            “I’ll ask you one more time: give us the girl.” Bill’s voice had taken on an odd quality; his words seemed pinched and he was talking in a higher pitch than normal. His entire body began to vibrate in a way that didn’t seem entirely human.

            “Pine Tree, who’s you boyfriend?” Gideon asked with a condescending smirk. “He seems feisty. I always thought you’d go for the more docile ones."

            And that was all it took.

            A blinding light erupted from the demon’s eyes and mouth, engulfing his entire body. Dipper and the others were forced to shield their eyes from the otherworldly beam. He heard distinct pops as the fluorescent lights lining the ceiling shattered, the energy flowing through the room overwhelming.

            When Dipper finally opened his eyes he found that the room was pitch black; it seemed that the power had gone out to the entire lab and being so deep underground there was no outside light to filter through. He held his breath, unsure of where anyone else was or what had happened to Bill, until he heard a voice speak in the darkness, at once soft and threatening.

            “Who am I?” a soft, menacing chuckle that echoed throughout the vast room, seeming to emanate from everywhere at once. “You want to know who I am. I have many names. I am the Eye of Providence, the seer of all, the god once worshipped by the men who came before you. I have been revered by many and feared by all. I have led men to great riches, and I have led men to horrid deaths. I can see the fabric of time itself, every twist and turn, every thread that leads off into every dimension. I can see where all your choices will lead. I have watched you come into this world and I have watched you die; I have watched you rise to power and I have seen you fall to ashes. If you were to give your fear a name, it would be my own. I am your worst nightmare, little boy.”

            A soft glow flickered to life, lighting the room in a fiery red light.

            Where Bill had stood, a familiar triangle now floated high above them all.


	18. Dance, fucker, dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from You're Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring  
> Aah we're so close to the end!

            Dipper’s mind raced. How long had Bill been able to resume his true form for? This meant that the deal had been broken God knows how long ago, which meant that Bill had been able to harm the Pines for quite some time.

            At the party? When Dipper had managed to piss him off beyond belief? Was Bill able to harm him then, and had for some reason chosen not to?

            And that meant that Bill had been able to leave the Pines. Why had he stayed?

            Probably the most important question, though, was how was Bill able to be in his true, all-powerful form outside of the mindscape? What type of hell had Dipper unleashed on the world?

            The questions whirled around in Dipper’s mind, but he was unable to focus on any of them at the moment, thanks to more pressing matters at hand.

            “Bill Cipher!” Gideon exclaimed, his face twisting into a snarl, snapping Dipper back to the events at hand.

            Bill grew in size until he seemed to occupy the entire room, floating high above them all, blue fire licking at his fingers as his triangular body glowed red.

            “You, child, are nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust in the eye of the universe.” Bill’s body flashed different images, some garish and some outright strange, but all of them equally terrifying to the onlooking humans.

            Gideon’s eyes flashed with panic; they were the eyes of a deer as it looks upon the predator that it knows will be its death.

            “Bill,” Dipper called softly once he was able to find his voice. “Bill, don’t hurt him.”

            But the demon, lost in his rage, refused to listen, or simply didn’t hear. A wind suddenly picked up in the cavernous room, paper and other small objects swirling ever faster about Bill in a mini-tornado.

            The three were buffeted by the objects flying around the room at increasing speeds.         Dipper pushed Mabel underneath him, using his body to shield her from the worst of the storm. He crouched down, shielding his eyes from the onslaught as he gazed up at the triangle. Dipper saw a piece of metal hurtling towards them out of the corner of his eye. He quickly ducked but was too late; the metal collided with the side of his head and he could feel hot blood trickling down his face.

            “Bill!” Dipper called amid the raging wind. “Don’t kill him, Bill!”

            The demon peered down at the human yelling at him. He looked so small, so insignificant standing below the demon. The red light emanating from Bill’s triangular body cast Dipper in an eerie glow, red blood running down the side of his face reflecting the garish light.

So easy to ignore. So easy to kill.

            And yet . . . .

            No.

            But . . .

            NO.

            But there was something about him . . . .

            The wind suddenly died down and Bill shrunk back down to nearly his normal size, floating in the air in front of Dipper, looking perplexed. “Why shouldn’t I kill him? He drained the forest of magic, kidnapped your sister, tried to kill you, and planned to turn the entire town into mindless slaves. If anyone deserves to die, it’s him.” The demon studied the human coolly and the human stared right back, two disparate forces brought together under improbable circumstances and once again disjointed. “And yet you want his life spared. Why?”

            The creature that hovered before him wasn’t the demon-turned-human that Dipper had come to know over the months; the man who was a great cook, loved horror movies and had a funny ticklish spot along his ribs. No, this was Bill Cipher, the ageless dream demon of unspeakable power who had watched civilizations rise and fall, who had used humans like puppets when he was bored and who killed whenever it struck his fancy without an ounce of remorse.

            “Because—because I don’t want you to,” Dipper said lamely, faltering under the demon’s unwavering gaze. “He’s an awful human being, but it isn’t up to you to decide whether or not he should die for his crimes.”

            Bill Cipher looked down with contempt, but there was a touch of befuddled uncertainty that didn’t go unnoticed by Dipper. “You would have me allow this pathetic excuse of a meat sack live just because you will it?”

            “Yes.” His voice may have been firm, but Dipper felt his will withering from keeping eye contact with the otherworldly creature for so long.

            Bill turned away from Dipper, floating his in the air above them all. He held out his arms and the wind centered around him in a mini tornado. The blue fire spread from the demon’s hands until he was surrounded in a swirling vortex of it.

            Bill chanted words in an unknown language, starting softy and quickly escalating so that his voice echoed throughout the room. All of the humans below looked up at him in horror, none knowing what he would release upon them.

There was a thunderous clap and a blinding flash, and then there was nothing.

~~

            Dipper, Stan, and Mabel found themselves thrown to the ground in front of Stan’s beaten up Cadillac.

            Legs shaking uncertainly, Dipper struggled to get to his feet, leaning heavily against the car. Stan sat up but didn’t stand, resting his head on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath. Mabel remained crumpled up on the ground, but Dipper watch as she coughed a few times and blearily opened her eyes.

            “Mabel!” Dipper called, as the woman shakily got to her feet. Once he was certain that he wouldn’t knock her over, Dipper pulled his sister into an embrace, burying his face in the familiar smell of her hair. He had thought that he might never see her again, and for a moment all he felt was relief and desperate gratitude. Mabel loosely returned the embrace, but Dipper could tell that she was having a difficult time placing exactly where she was.

            “What happened?” she asked groggily. “Last I remember I was with Candy, Grenda, and Pacifica . . . .”

            “Gideon kidnapped you,” Dipper said softly. “Do you remember what he said to you? Or how he took you here?”

            Mabel’s lips thinned into a pale line. “He told me that he had you, and the only way to ensure your safety was to come with him.”

            Dipper ran his hand over his face wearily. “Well, he certainly knows our weaknesses.”

            Mabel gave Dipper’s hand a weak squeeze, smiling at him gently. “I’m just happy we’re all okay.” She looked around as if suddenly having realized something. “Where’s Bill?”

            Dipper sighed and closed his eyes. “He’s—“

            A rumbling and then a crash sounded from the warehouse, cutting Dipper off and effectively snapping him back to the situation at hand: where was everyone else who had been in the lab? And, more importantly, where was Bill?

            Dipper ran up the road toward the old warehouse, but stopped suddenly, gaping at what lay before him. The entire cliff had crumbled in on itself, dust still rising from the scene of the implosion. Besides a few twisted pieces of metal reaching up from the ruins like desperate souls from the pits of hell, there was no sign of the lab at all.

            Dipper scanned the land around him, straining his eyes to peer through the darkness but to no avail: McGucket, Gideon, and Bill nowhere to be seen. It had started raining and lightning lit up the sky, illuminating the wreckage.

            Dipper’s mind whirled as he processed the events of the night. Bill had just doubtlessly killed Gideon, and probably McGucket, too. Bill, who had been able to return to his true form but hadn’t told Dipper, for whatever reason. Who had saved Dipper and his family from the wreckage in front of him, despite owing them nothing since the deal was over.

            Bill, who had disappeared without a word.

            Bill, who last night . . . .

            Mabel padded up behind Dipper softly, pressing a hand to his trembling shoulder. Dipper didn’t react, gazing upon the destruction as the steadily increasing rain soaked through them both.

            “Come on, bro-bro,” Mabel said quietly after a few moments, gently throwing an arm over his shoulders. “We should go home.”

            Dipper silently followed his twin back to the car, allowing himself one last glance back at the ruin.

            The three drove back to the Shack in silence, Stan driving with Mabel in the passenger seat. None of them felt the need to talk about what had just occurred.

            And if either of them noticed the tears quietly slipping down Dippers face, they didn’t comment.


	19. Love ain't nothin but a monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whispers* this is my favorite chapter of the story  
> I cannot believe there's only one chapter left to post!  
> The title of the chapter (and the story) is from 2 Heads by Coleman Hell

Dipper was the first out of the car when they reached the Mystery Shack, and he made his way slowly to the house, dreading entering the empty shack. He knew how different it would feel now that Bill was gone, their deal over now that the demon was restored to his full power.

            It was strange, how utterly he had become used to the demon living with them, and it was hard for Dipper to remember Gravity Falls without Bill shadowing his every step.

            It had taken almost the entire summer, but Dipper was finally able to admit it to himself: he had fallen head over heels for the demon. The same demon who had given him nightmares until he was seventeen and had attempted to kill (or at least mortally wound) him on countless occasions. The man laughed mirthlessly to himself; it was for the better that the demon was gone now.

            He wondered with a pang of something that tasted of regret and longing exactly what last night had been. While the entire event could certainly only be attributed to lust, Bill had still seemed oddly . . . into it. Dipper shook his head in a hopeless attempt to banish the thought. Bill had almost certainly just been playing off of, or rather playing _with_ , Dipper’s feelings. Lust isn’t love, he reminded himself.

            Dipper silently cursed himself as soon as he thought it; leave it to him to fall for a heartless demon incapable of feeling human emotions and wonder if the sex was _meaningful_.

            He was almost at the porch, the shack lost in the shadows of the stormy night. He stopped to gather his thoughts and brace himself, closing his eyes briefly. He would get over this. It was his own stupid fault for letting the demon in as he had. He had always been good at keeping people out, at building up impenetrable walls that no one could knock down. But for whatever reason, _Bill_ fucking _Cipher_ had been able to.

            With a deep, ragged sigh, Dipper walked up the rotting porch stairs.

            “Dipper,” a voice called softly from the shadows of the porch just as his hand touched the doorknob. The man jumped in surprise; the use of his more common nickname in that voice, that _human_ voice, created a jarring contrast.

            Bill walked towards him slowly, cautiously, as if afraid that moving any faster would scare Dipper away like an easily startled rabbit. His head was bowed, shoulders slumped, and he looked almost contrite. No, he looked more than just _contrite_ , he looked downright defeated.

            “Dipper, wha—,” Mabel cut off suddenly as she noticed Bill’s presence. She took one look between the two before ushering Stan into the house to tend to both of their wounds. The old man looked as though he wanted to protest, but silently acquiesced to the girl’s insistent hand motions.

            Dipper slowly stepped toward Bill, hands stuffed in his pockets and wet curls plastered to his forehead.  

            “You’re back,” he said coolly. “I thought that you would be far into the Mindscape by now.”

            Bill regarded Dipper silently, golden eyes unreadable as they bored holes into the human. The night had cooled off dramatically, and gusts of wind drove rain into the porch, stinging Dipper’s fevered skin. Water mingled with blood dripped from his wet hair onto his face, and he wanted nothing more than to go inside, take a warm shower, curl up in his bed and never leave. Minutes stretched by in silence, until finally the demon spoke, voice barely above a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t kill Gideon.”

            Dipper blinked in surprise, but all he said was, “Why?”

            “You didn’t want me to,” Bill deadpanned. “I teleported him and the scientists to the police station. They can do with them what they want.” Bill’s face was pale and drawn, and he looked as though he was at the end of his rope. Dipper had never seen the demon look so . . . helpless before.

            “Since when do you care whether or not I approve of anything you do?” the man demanded. Bill side-eyed Dipper tiredly but said nothing, so he continued, “How long have you been able to return to your true form for?”

            Bill gave a breath of humorless laughter that ended in what Dipper could have sworn was a broken sob. “Do you really want to know that?”

            “We could have saved the town so much earlier.” It was a statement, not a question, and Bill made no move to dispute it.

            Dipper contemplated the demon’s previous answer for a moment. “Then why stay? What _grand plan_ are you working towards? How have you benefitted from getting close to us throughout the summer?” He spit out the words accusingly, and the demon flinched as if physically assaulted by them.

            Bill didn’t answer right away; he seemed to be fighting with himself about something. His eyes flashed wildly, the eyes of a wild animal backed into a corner and making its last desperate attempt at freedom. Then, finally, “I didn’t _want_ to want to stay,” he spat out, face contorting in agitation.

            Dipper opened his mouth to speak, but Bill cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Let me finish.” The demon was visibly growing distressed, and he began pacing around the small porch.

            “There’s—something happened to me over the course of the summer,” he began haltingly. “I never thought that something like this even _could_ happen to me. I’m a demon, and demons can’t experience emotions. I’m not _supposed_ to be able to care about anyone.

            “I’m not _supposed_ to care about you.” Bill’s voice broke over the words. “I shouldn’t think that it’s adorable when you get embarrassed, or be beside myself with worry when I don’t know when you are. I shouldn’t know that your favorite color’s blue, that you like horror movies even though they scare you, or that you’ve never had a pet even though you’ve always wanted a dog. But I do, and it’s not natural! I’m a fucking _demon_. I’m not supposed to be able to feel affection. _Especially_ not for a human.” The demon’s words jumbled together as he ranted, voice growing increasingly heated.

            “I’ve existed for thousands upon thousands of years. I’ve seen everything there is to see. I am an expert at pain, and misery, and death. But I have never had to actually experience any of these human emotions.

            “When humans describe love, they say it is the best emotion there is. I can’t count how many deals I have made just because a clueless meatsack was in _love_.” Bill’s eyes were wild when he look at Dipper. “But this is _awful_ ,” his voice cracked into a sob. “This is torture. _This isn’t supposed to happen to me_.”

            Dipper’s breath caught in his throat and all he could hear was blood rushing in his ears as his heart picked up its pace. He had never imagined that he would hear those words spoken by the demon. Had Bill just admitted that he loved him?

            Bill’s face was curled into a snarl, hands balled into fists and fingernails cutting half-moons into his palms. “What’s wrong with me?” he choked out.

            He looked so vulnerable, so confused and helpless, that all Dipper could think to do was to pull him against him, wrapping strong arms around the demon as he relaxed into the embrace. Bill’s lean body trembled against Dipper as he clutched onto his shirt, face buried in the human’s neck.

            “For what it’s worth,” Dipper mumbled into Bill’s damp hair, “I love you too.”

            Bill looked up at Dipper, and the look in his eyes said everything that he himself couldn’t.

            Dipper slipped a hand behind Bill’s neck and brought their lips together softly. Bill’s hands curled into fists around the fabric of Dipper’s shirt, and he let out a small, pained sound that cut straight through Dipper.

The kiss was all slow touches and gentle caresses, nothing rushed or forced, and nothing like any of the touches they had shared the night prior.

Bill’s hands ran down Dipper’s sides, thumbs dipping into the hollows of his hipbones. The human shuddered as the demon’s hands slipped beneath his shirt, fingers exploring the bump and groove of every rib and leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

            Bill’s eyes flew open as his fingers ghosted over the healed ridges of Dipper’s brand. He separated himself from Dipper, trembling as he stared into the man’s eyes.

            “It’s the brand.”

            “What are you talking about?” Dipper was barely paying attention, lost in the bliss of kissing him, but the wild look in Bill’s eyes was concerning him, quickly bringing him back to reality.

            “The brand. It’s my sigil; it binds you to me. But it binds me to you, too. This body was only able to be created because I formed a link between the two worlds by marking you. Because the magic needed to create my body had to pass through you before entering the corporeal world, you must have had some sort of effect on it, almost like it imprinted on you.”

            “I’m not following you.”

            “Normally,” Bill continued animatedly, “I would be the same in a human body as in my true form. But I’ve never had to create a body for myself like this before, through a human intermediate. This body has been touched by you as much as by me. Meaning that I can feel human emotions.”

            “So what does that mean for us?” Dipper hedged.

            “It means,” Bill said, staring into Dipper’s eyes with an intensity that almost made the shorter man want to look away, “that I think I love you.”

            Dipper opened and closed his mouth as he sought for what to say; he wanted to rejoice at the words, but there was something that didn’t resound with him. “But am I just making you love me? Don’t you feel differently in your true form?”

            Bill began to shake his head but then paused, tilting his head sideways in thought. “It’s different. It’s like there are two of me, but they’re both _me_. There’s this human-type me, that loves you, and there’s my true form, which . . . doesn’t love you. I can’t feel human emotions in that form; they don’t translate. But in my true form, you . . . matter. I don’t feel anything for you, but it’s like I know I should. And I hate it, because it feels wrong, like some integral part of me is missing.

            “But in both of my forms, I want this. I want this human form. I want you.”

            And this time, it was Bill who pulled Dipper in for a kiss, fisting his hands into the front of Dipper’s shirt and pulling the man towards him forcefully, almost desperately. Dipper melted into the embrace, pulling Bill as close to him as possible, but still it wasn’t close enough.

            Bill’s hand came up to tangle in Dipper’s hair, pulling away when he found it sticky with blood.

            “You’re hurt,” Bill murmured, reaching up to gently touch the side of Dipper’s head again. The man winced at the touch, and when Bill pulled his hand back it was slick with blood.

            “I’m okay,” Dipper assured him, though he felt a pounding headache coming on.

            Bill laid a hand against Dipper’s temple, and the man leaned his head into the warm touch, closing his eyes. Heat emanated from Bill’s hand, and a gentle humming filled Dipper’s head.

            When Dipper opened his eyes, the pain had disappeared, and he ran a hand through his hair in amazement to find the gash gone.

            Bill grinned at him, wiggling his fingers. “Restored to full power.”

            Dipper’s face broke into a wide smile, and he wrapped his arms around Bill’s neck, pulling the demon down to his mouth once again. Bill happily obliged, arms winding around Dipper’s middle and pulling the man flush against him. Dipper found himself laughing softly against the demon’s mouth.

            Bill tilted his head quizzically. “What’s so funny?”

            “I just never could have seen this coming. Me, you . . . this is so unexpected.”

            “You’re telling me,” the demon replied with a scoff.

            Dipper caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned his head just in time to see Mabel peeking in through the window, beaming at them before quickly retreating when she knew she had been noticed. Laughing quietly, Dipper nuzzled his face against Bill’s neck.

            “Hey lovebirds, you two are going to catch colds if you don’t come inside soon!” Mabel called from inside, a smile evident in her voice.

            “I think we need to get you cleaned up,” Bill said, taking in Dipper’s bloody, soaked appearance fully for the first time.

            “C’mon,” Dipper said, grabbing Bill’s hand and leading him into the Mystery Shack, the pair grinning like idiots the whole time.


	20. You're the fire and the flood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot believe that I am posting the last chapter to this fic . . . I started writing this in March and it feels so strange to finally be done with it.  
> Thank you to all of my readers, you've made my first foray into the world of fanfiction an incredibly positive one, and I could not be more thankful.
> 
> This chapter title is from Fire and the Flood by Vance Joy
> 
> My tumblr: http://missunknownuser.tumblr.com/  
> The playlist for the fic: http://8tracks.com/missunknownuser/love-ain-t-nothin-but-a-monster

            Dipper and Bill had been sleeping next to each other for the entire summer, but for the first time, Dipper woke up the next morning still wrapped in Bill’s embrace. He felt the demon stir, and found himself staring into golden eyes. For a moment Bill looked uncertain, unsure of where the two now stood.

            “Good morning,” Dipper said softly, and wiped any uncertainty the demon may have had away with a gentle kiss.  

           That morning, the entire family went to have breakfast at Greasy’s. Mabel couldn’t help but smile when she noticed how Bill and Dipper used every excuse to touch each other: brushing their fingers together when Dipper asked Bill to pass the syrup, the way they walked as if joined at the hip.

            From the shrewd way that Stan was watching the two throughout breakfast Mabel knew that he must have guessed what was happening, but he didn’t comment. He had had enough to deal with over the summer what with having a demon living in his house; accepting that said demon was now dating his grand-nephew would be another battle entirely.

            With everything that had happened over the summer, Dipper had all but forgotten that his and Mabel’s twenty-first birthday was fast approaching. Though it had slipped his mind, Mabel had evidently not forgotten to plan them a party the likes of which “the town had never seen.” Dipper was unsure why they needed such a grand celebration, but Mabel had insisted that the combination of their victory over Gideon and turning twenty-one made an over the top party a necessity.

            The week following their encounter with Gideon and leading up to the party passed in a blur for Dipper, and when he looked back he found that he couldn’t really remember much about it. When pressed, all he could drag up were different memories of Bill (some of which he blushed quite furiously at), and Mabel frantically shoving differently colored swatches of fabric and party decorations at him, forcing him to choose one.

~~

            Dipper and Bill got ready together on the afternoon of the party, dressed a bit nicer than usual but not nearly as nice as for Gideon’s party.  

            “Pine Tree,” Bill whined, “do we have to go? I don’t want to have to hang around the townspeople all night. They’re creepy.”

            “Well, since the party is pretty much being held since you helped save the town, I would say that you have to go,” Dipper responded, the side of his mouth quirking up in a half-smile.

            Bill huffed. “I thought it was because you and Shooting Star are celebrating being a year closer to death.”

            Dipper barked out a surprised laugh. “Something like that.”

            Mabel had decided that their end of summer/victory/birthday party needed to be held outdoors, so she had settled on a large clearing near the lake. She managed to decorate the area beautifully, setting out picnic tables and hanging twinkling lanterns among the trees. Music blared from a portable stereo system, and a makeshift bar was set up near the tree line.

            It was a hot day, typical of late August, but by evening it had cooled considerably. Mabel had been true to her word when she had said that she would invite the whole town, and in fact nearly the whole town had shown up.

            Despite their best efforts, Bill and Dipper still arrived at the party late. Mabel had been there for a while already, making last minute preparations and making sure that there was enough food. She had settled on a simple barbecue, deciding that it was better to save money to splurge on the alcohol.

            It was a bit awkward when Bill and Dipper first arrived, as Dipper was immediately accosted by people he only vaguely knew wishing him a happy birthday. Soon enough, however, the two found a group of people they were more familiar with.

            Wendy found them not long after, bear hugging Dipper as she teased him about finally being of legal drinking age.

            Dipper shot a glance at Bill while he talked to Wendy, having finally realized why the demon had gotten so angry at him the night of Gideon’s party. However, it seemed that whatever animosity Bill had felt towards the redhead had resolved itself.

Wendy didn’t even raise an eyebrow when the demon slipped an arm around Dipper’s waist, pulling him close, and Dipper had to wonder if Mabel hadn’t gotten to her first.

            Dipper’s twin was flitting around the party with unbridled energy, making everyone feel welcome and making sure that they all had a drink in their hand and food on their plate. He noticed that she had been spending a large amount of the evening by Pacifica’s side, and he made a note to question her later on.

            Mabel sidled up to Bill as soon as Dipper left his side to get drinks for the two of them. She had already had a bit to drink (allegedly informing anyone who asked that it _was_ her twenty-first birthday, after all), and was glowing with a certain care-free enthusiasm and giddiness.

            “So, Bill,” she began. “Now is when I give you the lecture about how if you hurt my brother I will find ways to torture you that not even you have heard of before.” She punctuated the threat with a cheery smile.

            Bill smiled, oddly genuine. “Why Shooting Star, I would expect nothing less.”

            Mabel gave the demon’s shoulder a light squeeze as they watched Dipper make his way through the throng of people. “He loves you, you know,” she said softly. “I haven’t seen him like this with anyone else.”

            It was a few moments later when Bill finally spoke. “I know. _I know_.”

            “And you love him too,” she asserted, not needing the demon’s confirmation. “I’m glad you two idiots finally realized it,” she said fondly. “Took you long enough. I was getting ready to bring in the big guns.”

“Oh, Shooting Star?” Bill said suddenly, a cheeky smile spreading across his face. “Funny thing, love potions don’t work on demons, regardless of their physical form.”

            Mabel blanched and sputtered. “Bill, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

            The demon gave her a wink. “But I do appreciate the effort.”

            “What did you do to her?” Dipper asked, handing Bill a drink as he watched Mabel make a hasty retreat from the demon.

            “Nothing,” Bill grinned, slipping an arm around the other’s waist.

            Dipper and Bill socialized for most of the night, never more than a few feet between them. Soon enough, however, they began to drift away from the party, and found themselves at the edge of the forest.

            “C’mon Pine Tree, let me show you something,” Bill said softly.

            Dipper glanced back at the party, but figured that they wouldn’t be missed for a little while at least. He took Bill’s hand and let the demon lead him into the forest.

            The two walked for a good ten minutes, Dipper sticking close to Bill, who seemed to be able to see perfectly well in the dark. Rather than disappearing gradually, the noise from the party seemed to fade all at once, and Dipper had the feeling that they were far, far away from the town.

            Small, secret sounds of nighttime creatures surrounded them, ordinary and paranormal, reminding Dipper of what they had achieved that summer.

            Bill stopped when they reached a small clearing.   Stones of varying sizes bordered the small grass patch, seemingly strategically placed. This far away from the town the stars were brighter than normal, and Dipper was able to make out the constellations which had given him his nickname.

            “Any time now,” Bill murmured as he took a seat in the center of the clearing, patting the ground for Dipper to sit down beside him.

            Dipper obeyed, wanting to ask what they were waiting for but deciding to keep quiet. In only a few minutes, however, his unspoken questions were answered.

            It began with a large rock to the left of the two. Dipper thought his eyes were tricking him at first, but when he blinked and looked again, he saw that he had been right: the rock had begun to glow faintly. It began to emit a soft white light, which slowly changed to yellow. Before Dipper’s eyes each rock began to do the same, all of them suddenly opalescent, shimmering in the cool summer air. The colors of the rocks were muted, varied hues, and it vaguely reminded Dipper of the aurora borealis.

The colors were reflected in Bill’s eyes as the demon turned to gaze at him.

            “I wanted to show you earlier in the summer, but I thought it better to wait,” Bill said softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

            “What is this place?” Dipper asked equally as quietly, voice full of awe as the two were bathed in the dancing light.

            “The heart of the forest. It’s what gives Gravity Falls its sentience. It’s thanking us for saving it.”

            “I can feel it,” Dipper said, hand brushing over the brand on his chest.

“You’re permanently linked to the forest now,” Bill said, frowning slightly as he laid his hand over his mark on Dipper’s chest. “It knows its own.”

            Dipper didn’t know what to say; in response, he leaned over to press their lips together and hoped it was enough to convey what he meant.

            Bill slipped an arm around his waist, pulling the other on top of him. Dipper slipped a hand under Bill’s chin to tilt his head up as Bill’s hands tangled in his hair. After a few moments Dipper wasn’t sure where he stopped and Bill began, the two were so entwined in one another.

            By the time he came up for air, smiling dazedly down at Bill, the rocks had assumed their mundane colors once again.

            “We have to get back to the party,” Dipper said when he finally sat up, hair sticking up from where Bill had ran his fingers through it. He was pleased to note that the demon looked just as disheveled as he felt.

            “I don’t want to,” Bill pouted, attempting to pull the human back down.

            Dipper swatted his lover’s hands away, laughing. “We’re never going to hear the end of it from Mabel if we don’t get back soon.”

            “Fine,” Bill huffed. “But you’re all mine as soon as it’s over.”

            Dipper laughed in agreement, leaning down to peck Bill’s lips one last time before standing up, pulling the other with him.

            As they walked back to the party, Dipper contemplated all that had happened throughout the summer. It had surely been eventful, and he never could have imagined that he would have ended up in the situation he was now in. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that he and Bill Cipher would have become not only friends, but lovers.

            What kind of future could they have, an awkward college student and an immortal dream demon? Dipper wasn’t sure, but when he felt Bill’s hand slip into his own as the demon turned to give him a small, almost bashful smile, he knew that he was just going to have to wait and find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again: thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has read, left kudos and commented. Y'all rock!


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